Hansi Flick admits the “eureka” moment when he vowed nothing would stop him one day becoming Barcelona manager was the evening of 21 March 2006. He and 67,000 others were at the Camp Nou to watch Frank Rijkaard's side beat Getafe 3-1 as the home crowd sang “Happy Birthday” to Ronaldinho, who turned 26 that day.
Moving on to the present, Flick's remarkably youthful side are top of LaLiga with a 100% record and are preparing for their Champions League debut as Barcelona manager in Monaco on Thursday (more on that in a moment).
Flick will never know, but it is a bit difficult to compare his situation with that of Rijkaard's Barça, who were on their way to becoming European champions against Arsenal in Paris. The context is as follows.
Flick saw Getafe win 1-0 at Camp Nou that night thanks to a winger who had been the Lamine Yamal/Pedri/Gavi/Pau Cubarsí/Marc Casado of his day. His full name was Fernando Macedo Da Silva Rodilla, better known as Nano.
While at Barcelona's academy, Nano lived at La Masia (the centuries-old stone-built academy right next to Camp Nou where true legends like Pep Guardiola and Andrés Iniesta stayed as children) and attended high school classes with one-on-one tutoring from a kid named Mikel Arteta.
I wonder what has become of that saturnine Basque midfielder. (Hint: his team won the North London derby at the weekend.)
By 1999, Louis van Gaal had given Nano his debut in the Spanish Super Cup, La Liga and the Champions League, and on each occasion the Galician became the youngest player to wear the famous Barça shirt in those competitions. At just over 17 years and six months, Nano was already able to play.
When Flick went to the Camp Nou 18 years ago as a special guest of Nike, he was inspired by a Barcelona XI that contained just three Spaniards (compared to the seven that played against Girona on Sunday). The youngest boy in Rijkaard's team that night was a 23-year-old Brazilian, Thiago Motta, and the rest were mostly in their 20s. Zero comparison to Flick's teenage ensemble.
When Nano was Barcelona's “wonder child” aged 17, the club secured his future with a multi-million-pound five-year contract, despite receiving a huge offer from Arsenal. The Galician teenager spent some of that money, to huge criticism, on a soft-top two-seater Mercedes convertible and also bought his own home in the city. But by the night Flick saw him baiting Barcelona into joining Bernd Schuster's Getafe, he had already been sacked by the Catalans and Atletico Madrid.
The comparisons between that version of Barcelona and the current one could not be more marked.
In 2006, Rijkaard made both Iniesta and Lionel Messi stand out, but he used them conservatively. Don't worry: it seemed crazy then, not now. Rijkaard didn't feel the need to take risks. So he didn't.
In the case of Iniesta, the Barcelona manager drove one of Spain's best footballers to despair and, later that season, left him on the bench for the Champions League final. Let's not even talk about Messi's absolute fury when he discovered that Rijkaard had left him out of the squad for that final.
At that time, the club had veterans in the reserve team such as Xavi, Edmilson, Henrik Larsson, Sylvinho and Rafa Marquez. Rijkaard saw the youth players as a luxury.
At the end of Barcelona’s 4-1 win in Girona on Sunday, Flick’s unused substitutes included an 18-year-old goalkeeper born in Miami, a 19-year-old defender and an attacking midfielder who turned 16 last month. While the coach had already brought in an 18-year-old full-back, plus two other players who had only started three times for the first team. That’s against the backdrop of the starting XI already including Yamal (17), Pedri (21), Cubarsí (17), Alex Balde (20) and Casadó (who turned 21 last week).
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Barcelona dismantles Girona to remain perfect in LaLiga
Barcelona give a goal-scoring lesson against Girona and get their fifth victory of the season in LaLiga.
Flick promoted Guille Fernandez, that 16-year-old on the bench I mentioned, to Girona's first team largely because his 16-year-old cousin Toni Fernandez, a left-footed striker whom most of Europe's elite wanted to pluck from Barcelona this summer, was suffering from a minor back ache. Otherwise, Toni, who has scored a goal per game for Barcelona B this season, would have been the Fernandez of that squad.
The three main questions this inspires are: how does Barcelona's youth system continue to find and develop these gems when La Masia is suffering from cuts and constant coaching changes? A good scout and brand appeal are the keys. But the results remain phenomenal.
Next question: why then does the club periodically spend so much money on the transfer market that it has a debt of more than a billion euros? Greed, vanity and stupidity, in my opinion.
And how much can you really expect from such a young team this season, without evoking the “you can't win anything with kids” chant that Alan Hansen shouted on the BBC's Match of the Day programme when a young Manchester United (whose ground would become known as the Class of '92) were beaten by Aston Villa on the opening day of the 1995-96 season?
Well, starting in Monte Carlo on Thursday and again on Sunday in Villarreal. (watch live on ESPN), we'll see.
At the moment, since the latter part of Ronald Koeman's reign at Barcelona, through Xavi placing enormous faith in Gavi and Pedri and giving debuts to Lamine, Balde and Cubarsi, it seems that if you are over 14, can kick the ball accurately and are over 1.65m tall, then there is a chance you will train with the first team, maybe even play.
Not all of the young talents currently wearing the Barcelona first team shirt will end up staying there for the long term. But most will and, mark my words, before long you'll be looking up to the Fernandez cousins, Unai Hernandez, Orian Goren and Pedro “Dro” Fernandez. Five very special talents, all of whom, except for Hernandez, 19, are 16.
Nano's experience at Barcelona is a metaphor for Arteta, Sergio Garcia, Bojan Krkic, Andre Onana, Cesc Fabregas, Gerard Pique, Dani Olmo and Xavi Simons, all of whom left their parent clubs ridiculously early because they believed, or were told, that they would not be given enough faith or playing time.
Remarkable.
I think Fabregas, a superstar of Barcelona's youth academy who lifted trophies galore in teams with Messi and Pique, and who left for Arsenal because by the age of 16 he had lost faith in making it into Barca's first team quickly enough, explains it best.
In an interview with the BBC last week, he said: “Barcelona's financial problems meant they were forced to start playing all the young players. Look at them now, a few years later! Young players keep coming in. Flick keeps putting two or three more in. And after Xavi put Lamine Yamal in the team two years ago at 15, maybe he's worth €120m now?
“Clubs and players gain experience in this process, but sometimes it is the managers who pay the price. When Chelsea were banned from signing players [Frank] Lampard started playing academy players like Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham and Reece James. Who was sacrificed for the results? Frank Lampard. The kind of time that Arsène Wenger was allowed to show me, that doesn't exist anymore. Only when a club is forced to do it, like Barcelona. So suddenly there are 10 young players aged 16 or 17 who can play in the first team and everyone says: “How amazing they are doing!”
“No, no. If Barcelona had hundreds of millions, they would probably invest in the next Neymar or Ronaldinho. I think there is much more potential for players starting younger and younger and they are much more prepared than I was at their age.”
We are all on a journey of discovery. It is extraordinarily rare for one of Europe's elite clubs to be so The team is also dependent on young players with sensational talent. And the chances for revenge and a second chance don't usually come just a few weeks apart. But that's what's about to happen to Flick and his team.
In their season-opening friendly at the Gamper Tournament, they were beaten 3-0 by Monaco and came out looking like inexperienced youngsters. The German coach said jetlag and fatigue after their tour of the United States and the transatlantic flights back were the main culprits.
Now, 38 days later, they face the Ligue 1 side again. A horrible pitch at the Stade Louis II (it's on the roof of their car park and indoor sports facilities!), a quality opponent and plenty of injury problems in the Barcelona squad… What can Flick's boys achieve? Are they okay? Their learning curve (and ours) continues.
