To Invest or to Spend

If you are not familiar with the world of soccer or the sport that is known as football in the rest of the world, one of the biggest rivalries in the sporting world and the world of football is F.C. Barcelona and Real Madrid. Just like the Red Sox and Yankees both clubs accuse the other one of being the evil empire, both of them are big spenders but they do it differently. The Yankees of the late 1990s were said to buy they best players they could but yet had more home grown talent and spare parts on their roster then the team with the second highest payroll in all of baseball, the Boston Red Sox. At that time the Yankees had Derek Jeter, Alfonso Sorino, Nick Johnson, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Ramiro Mendoza, Bernie Williams, Jimmy Leyritz, Shane Spencer, and Ricky Ledee who were all home grown starters. Mean while during this time span (1996-2000) the Red Sox stars that were home grown were Roger Clemons (who left after the 1996 season) Jeff Suppon (1997) Nomar Garciaparra, John Valentin, Mo Vaughn (1998), Jason Veritek and Trot Nixon, I think you get what I am trying to say.

Carles Puyol and Gerard Piqué

This situation is very similar to what has been going on in Spain for at least the past seven seasons. If you take a look at the two teams starting with the 2005-06 campaign when Barcelona won the champion’s league through this current season you will see that the imports disappear and more home grown talent is in the lineup where as in Madrid it is the other way around. Barcelona has committed to building through their youth system where as Madrid goes out and throws money at their problem. Some say that Barcelona and the Yankees are just as bad as Real Madrid and the Red Sox. Barcelona spends money on bringing in anyone that is under 18 to their academy or goes out and picks up the 19, 20, and 21 year olds from lower level teams, of course the lower level teams will sell their players because the money that comes in will be enough for them to finance their next three or four transfer periods. The last part is Barcelona spends money on keeping their stars with the squad, just like the Yankees keeping Jeter, Williams, Rivera and Posada around for the remainder of their careers. The argument is that both pairs of teams are throwing money around as if they would be playing monopoly, while the smaller teams are struggling to keep the players they have.

Ikes Casillas

If we look at the 2005-06 Barcelona team they had four “home grown” (Xavi, Valdes, Puyol and Oleguer) players in their starting 11 and 43% of the total roster where as Madrid had 3 home grown (Guti, Raul, Casillas) and 38% of the total roster. Below are the following seasons.

season	Barcelona home grown vs imports	% of total home grown	Madrid home grown vs. imporst	% of total home grown
06-07	4/11 (Valdes, Puyol, Xavi, Messi)	39	2/11 (Guti, Casillas)	35
07-08	5/11 (Valdes, Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi)	36	2/11 (Guti, Casillas)	28
08-09	6/11 (Valdes, Puyol, Pique Xavi, Iniesta, Messi)	46	2/11 (Casillas, Raul)	24
09-10	8/11 (Valdes, Puyol, Xavi, Pique Iniesta, Xavi, Sergio, Messi, Pedro)	50	3/11 (Guti, Casillas, Arbeloa)	20
10-11	7/11 (Valdes, Xavi, Pique Iniesta, Xavi, Sergio, Messi, Pedro)	52	1/11 (Casillas)	20
11-12	8/11 (Valdes, Xavi, Puyol, Pique, Iniesta, Sergio, Messi, Fabregas)	57	2/11 (Casillas, Arbeloa)	28

Xavi, Leo Messi,  and Andrés Iniesta

As you can see Barcelona has more home grown talent. This means that they spend less money on filling in the rest of the roster spots. The other added bonus is that the players are familiar with each other and by the time they get to the top squad they are playing like a well oiled machine. When a team brings in a bunch of new players it takes time for them to jell together and start performing as a team, during this time the other teams that they are competing against you have a chance to pull away or get a jump on them

            Since the 2005-06 season Barcelona has won four domestic league titles, one domestic cup, five domestic super cups, three European cups, two European super cups, and two club world cups for a grand total of 17 trophies in the span of seven season and have a chance to still add more this season. Real Madrid during the same span has won two domestic league titles, one domestic cup, and one domestic super cup for a total of four trophies. 

Raul and Guti

            All I am saying it is better to build from with in and to save up the money for a rainy day when your star player has a season ending injury and you need a quick fix.