http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Barcelona-c38604 coach, Tito Vilanova, admits the club’s talented youngsters are important to the development of the club, but stated that fielding the academy players does not have any impact on his team selection.
Vilanova has claimed that he could field any 11 players from the academy if he wanted to, but revealed that winning titles for the club with the youngsters is more rewarding and pleasing.
Eleven home grown players were fielded when Barca defeated http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Valencia-c40863. This is a feat that is important for a major club like Barcelona.
La Blaugrana boss has down played this fact and said that it was not intentional. He fielded them due to the circumstances that prevailed during the match.
"It's not like a title; it was not a target. We could have fielded 11 academy players earlier if we had wanted to, but it was a situation that happened because of injury.”
La Masia academy has undoubtedly produced young talented players that turned out to be world stars. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Lionel-Messi-c22296 was a graduate from this academy.
Despite all this success, Vilanova has said that winning titles takes precedence over developing the club’s youngsters. He stated all of the youngsters would not have featured if they did not contribute to the club’s hunt for continuous success.
"I think it's more of a success to win titles and Champions Leagues with seven or eight academy players, like Barcelona have done in recent years.”
The 44-year-old has confidence in his youngsters and believes that if the club was not winning with them, then they would not have been included in the side.
“We play them because we trained them and because they're good. If we weren't winning, it wouldn't be worth including them.”
Finally, the Spaniard remarked on the reason why the major teams in football have not adopted Barcelona’s successful youth academy. He simply thinks other teams don’t play youngsters for the simple reason that they don’t believe they can win with them.
"If other teams don't play them it's because they believe they wouldn't have such a good chance to win."
Barcelona are yet to lose a match in the domestic league. They are at the top of the table with 37 points.
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