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Four new B-players called-up for Gamper

Posted by Editor at Wednesday, 19 August 2009
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46 Comments

Besides Barcelona Atlètic players Muniesa, Fontàs, Jonathan and Jeffren, who have been with the first team since the pre-season started, four other Barcelona Atlètic players have been called-up for this evening's Joan Gamper Trophy game against Manchester City after having trained with the squad yesterday and today:

central defender Marc Bartra (18), right back defender Martín Montoya (18), attacking midfielder Thiago (18) and winger Gai Assulin (18).

Read more:
Barça B: Introducing the promoted players
Jonathan hopes to be promoted to first team

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46 comments:

Boris said...

shouldn't we start calling them athletic-players soon concerning the name shift of Barça-B?

19 August 2009 at 03:37  
Anonymous said...

Remember that we can only play an Atletic player for 5 games in La Liga if he plays for the Atletic team too. So several players from Atletic have to be promoted and not play for the Atletic team this season.

19 August 2009 at 03:39  
pep said...

Barcelona Atletic can get too long for the title. And it's still the B-team.

19 August 2009 at 03:43  
Anonymous said...

Pep, what's up with Víctor Vázquez these days? Has he lost out on his chance to break into the first team for ever or what?

19 August 2009 at 03:47  
Bojanibra said...

yes thats gai beside guadiola.i really want him and thiago to have some minutes in this match;
pls guys can we change more than three players here?

19 August 2009 at 04:02  
buj said...

I want to see Muniesa and Fontas show their true mettle tonight as they'll be up against proven outstanding forwards tonight. If they play and aced, I'm sure we can put our minds to rest a little bit about our back line cover.

19 August 2009 at 04:02  
Davor said...

to bojanibra
yeah we can, its a friendly
we can essentially play with two different sides in each half

19 August 2009 at 04:04  
barca4life said...

How can we only play a b-team player for 5 games in la liga? Didnt busquets play more than 5 games last season before we promoted him?

Good to see montoya thiago and Gai getting their chances to impress. Honestly i'd rather we give montoya a chance to back up right back rather than buy another. Puyol can also cover the position so it wont be a problem.

19 August 2009 at 04:19  
fcbee said...

We seem to produce a lot of good centre-backs lately. Bartra has apparently done well in his first games with Atlètic, so with Muniesa and Fontàs and Botia on loan, that's four youngsters.

19 August 2009 at 04:20  
Anonymous said...

When Busquets played more than 5 matches for Barcelona, it meant that he couldn't go back to the B team, that's all. So if we count on some of our B team players to play more than 5 matches, they will not be able to play for the B team.

19 August 2009 at 04:28  
Anonymous said...

fcbee, How do you know that these are good and not promoted by Pep because Pep is desperate for a centre back and wants to see them play?

19 August 2009 at 04:30  
Ramzi said...

True, fcbee. It seems that this offense oriented club is producing more defenders than all the clubs of Series A:)

19 August 2009 at 04:33  
deco said...

I think Thiago will play his way into the first team tonight.

19 August 2009 at 04:34  
Ramzi said...

Anonymous, I am sure no one is expectig Pep to use all the young guys he select for friendlies. But Pep will only give them the chance if they have potentials for future. Its more to encourage them than to test them. We are not that desperate so we try all our youth players begging for quality to use. Or else we would have bought some (or at least didnt send Botia for loan). I am sure non of the promoted players for this game (putting muniesa and Fontas aside)is as reliable as Henrique or Caceres to be a starter next season, they are a project for the future.

19 August 2009 at 04:37  
fcbee said...

We've seen Muniesa and Fontas in action during the pre-season and for 17-18 years old, Anony, you have to admit they did excellent.

Botia exploded last year (even became Spanish youth international) and will now get a chance with a Liga club.

Over the last years, we had a lot of centre-backs who were close just didn't make it: Olmo, Rodri, Valiente. But out of these four, we could at least have one starter with Muniesa and maybe another good back-up.

19 August 2009 at 04:46  
LeónDragón said...

that guy surely isn't gai, looks more than bartra.
gai has no curls

19 August 2009 at 04:48  
Anonymous said...

fcbee; true, Muniesa looks like the real deal, but maybe this Bartra kid is there because Pep wants to look at central defenders, not necessarily because Bartra is any better than other players in midfield that we have in our youth system.

19 August 2009 at 04:52  
fcbee said...

At the left of Pep (behind his back), that's definitely Gai.

19 August 2009 at 04:54  
barca4life said...

Anony i thought it was only if you didnt have spanish nationality that you could not go back to the b-team after playing for the senior team? Or is that another rule?

19 August 2009 at 04:59  
BarcaFan(BiH) said...

So why did Thiago not take part in pre-season?

I thought that kid was the next big thing.

19 August 2009 at 05:14  
barca4life said...

Thiago was with the Spain U-19 team BarcaFan. He had a tournament at the same time and therefore went to that instead to represent spain rather than staying with barca.

19 August 2009 at 05:19  
Anonymous said...

im from Barcelona and i've have seen Marc Bartra and believe me he TOP NOTCH, he was great when i saw him, hes huge but has great positioning which is the most important thing for a Barca defender, he also passes very well... no wonder PEP has called him up at such a young age(18)...
PEp definitely did not call him up just because hes desperate but instead because his damn good and hes also a spanish youth international btw...

19 August 2009 at 05:21  
Mihawk said...

@ BarcaFan(BiH)

Thiago played at the european under 19 championship with the spanish team, together with Oriol Romeu.
Both of them would have had a chance to take part in the pre season of the first team, but they had to play there.

19 August 2009 at 05:21  
Anonymous said...

"Damn good"? Spanish youth international is nothing special. Alot of our youth plays for Spain youth teams. Why didn't Bartra play for Atletic if he is so "damn good"? He is 18 years old, so the same age as Thiago and Gai who played for Atletic last season.

19 August 2009 at 05:27  
fcbee said...

Because the places were already filled. Muniesa also played with Juvenil A last season.

Sometimes the coaches think it's better to keep a player a little longer at a certain team, not necesarily because they're not good enough but because of the playing time and the stronger opponents in third division. Juvenil A plays against youth teams, Atletic against regular teams, so when you're 17 sometimes it's not a good thing to compete with 30 year old guys.

19 August 2009 at 05:31  
Anonymous said...

Exactly fcbee. So why did Thiago and Gai play for Atletic then? They are the same age as Bartra. Muniesa is a year younger, maybe two years younger, so it is understandable that he played for Juvenil A instead of Atletic, but Bartra has no experience with Atletic.

It seems to me that the talents are abit too young. They are all 18, only Fontas and Dos Santos are 19. Or Muniesa who are 17. Can we really count on any of these to play more than 5 games? What happens if Dani Alves is out for 3 months. Then we have Montoya (18) and Muniesa (17) as the only backups for RB and CB. Are these guys ready to play against 30 year olds as you say? And maybe Fontas if we believe he is good enough. But is he really?

19 August 2009 at 05:38  
barca4life said...

It isnt always who plays for the higher team at the earlier age. Gio dos Santos played 38 games for the barca first team at age 18. Andres Iniesta played just 26 games (over the course of 2 seasons) for the senior team by the time he was 20. Which one would you rather have today?

19 August 2009 at 05:43  
fcbee said...

You cannot compare players. Everyone has a different evolution, every situation is different. Puyol still played with Barcelona B when he was 20. Guess no one would have predicted back then the career he would have made.

19 August 2009 at 05:43  
Anonymous said...

Iniesta was better than Dos Santos at 18 years old too. Iniesta at 18 would have gotten more matches than Dos Santos with Rijkaard.

19 August 2009 at 05:53  
sachin said...

@anonymous
if we go by your logic even jonathan dos santos played for juvenil A last season and he was already 19 FYI and see how well he did in the preseason, way better than gai who played with barca atletic when he was just 16...

another reason is defenders are generally slow in their evolution compared to attackers, how many defenders do you debuting for a world class club like barca, arsenal, man utd etc. at 18?? whereas u see quite a few attackers debut at the age of18 every season...

19 August 2009 at 05:58  
barca4life said...

Yeah iniesta may have gotten more games under rijkaard at age 18 but he may not have been the player he turned out to be today. The point is dont rush players before their time. Look at puyol.

19 August 2009 at 06:18  
Anonymous said...

Good point, sachin. I admit I was wrong, and you are right.

19 August 2009 at 06:22  
Andréssibraviqué said...

EMD claims Laporta would have said to be keen to sign Robben or Higuain if the Madrid board are willing to sell them to us for a reasonable-market price... If suppose that happens who would you welcome, Robben or higuain? Me, I will go for Higuain. The man is a genuine striker, good poacher. Robben is a selfish mother fucker, don't want him any where near barcelona

@barca4life
Very good point... Seems like many of us are not ready to accept that though :(

19 August 2009 at 06:26  
Anonymous said...

There's no way that Iniesta would have been worse if he had played more games early on. The reason he didn't play as much as he should have played was because there were so many players in front of him. He was basically a supersub during the whole Rijkaard period, well into his 20s. It was probably a mistake, we should consider ourselves lucky that he didn't decide to leave after getting too few opportunities. Iniesta was brilliant at 18, and brilliant every year.

Puyol was abit of an exception. Didn't he arrive at Barcelona when he was 17? AFAIK, he isn't a youth product like Messi, Xavi, Iniesta etc. He is more similar to Pedro in that regard. Coming very late to the club from some regional club in Catalunya.

19 August 2009 at 06:29  
Andréssibraviqué said...

It really fascinating to know that Puyol was awarded Best European Right Back way back in 2002. Man he's the best example for being a utility :)

19 August 2009 at 06:33  
barca4life said...

Remember the B team is picked by luis enrique. So if he wants a player he takes them. it has nothing to do with talent. If he feels he has a better older player that he brought in that is better to get barca promotion he will pick that player. Iago is the perfect example. He was not promoted to the b team got annoyed and left. Maybe Bartra is just more loyal and more willing to wait for his chance than Iago was. I highly doubt it has anything to do with him not being talented otherwise guardiola would not have picked him.

19 August 2009 at 06:59  
Anonymous said...

2 line ups for tonight?

Valdes

Alves - Puyol - Pique - Abidal
Toure
Xavi - Keita
Messi - Zlatan - Pedro

2nd half

Pinto
Montoya - Muniesa - Henrique - Maxwell
Busquets
Thiago - Dos Santos
Jeffren - Bojan - Gai Assulin

Pretty descent line ups :P

19 August 2009 at 07:58  
Anonymous said...

Henrique has been rejected by Pep, Anony. He has been thrown in the trash can. Considered worthless by Pep. Fontas and Muniesa are ahead of him. Probably Bartra and 5 other youth players are ahead of him also.

Where is Henry in your lineup anyway? We need to mix up the lineups, can't play only youth in one team.

19 August 2009 at 08:26  

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