The importance of home grown players

Transfer Market Inefficiencies

As pointed out by the excellent Soccernomics, the transfer market is essentially a very inefficient market. This means that buyers more often than not, tend not to get value for money spent. What this means is that some buyers get more than what they should, given the amount they spend, and some get less than what they should, given the amount they spend. We all know this simple home truth. If the market for transfers were an efficient one, Fernando Torres would be 25 times the player Michu is, and so on. As we know, that doesn’t really happen. So, the direct implication is that some teams take advantage of these inefficiencies and over-perform in the transfer market (Arsenal) and some are exploited and under-perform (Barcelona).

Is Fernando Torres really worth 25 times as much as Michu?

There are two ways to counter this problem. Firstly, start beating the market. This is easier said than done, and very few managers have been able to do so, on a consistent basis, and even the greats like Wenger aren’t without their fair share of flops. The other way to avoid the inefficiencies is to stay away from the transfer market. Of course, this means that a club would have to look primarily at its youth academy to supply new players. A club that practices this philosophy very well is Barcelona. They look to stay away from the transfer market as far as possible, partly because it’s part of their DNA to give youth a chance, and partly because their record on the market is so poor (think Chygrynskiy, Ibrahimovic, Hleb, etc.). This has turned out to be a great strength for the Catalans, as some of their best players have come through the academy, and shone after being thrown into the deep end while they were still young. It’s fairly reasonable to think that players like Pedro may not have got the opportunities they did, if Barcelona were as good in the market as, say Chelsea. The established stars at the Blues often block the path of young players into the team.

So, in a way, Barcelona took a weakness, and converted it into a major strength. This has not only saved them millions, if not billions in transfers, agents fees, wages, and signing on fees, but also led to a strong, stable, unified, and competitive unit. These savings could be ploughed back into the club, and utilised to further develop their youth academy, leading to a higher level of academy graduates, and continuous improvement to the first team, without risking inefficiency, or enormous payments. This is a situation of self-sustaining success. It works well, in theory, and based on the example of Barcelona, practically too, to an extent.

Playing Style

The two club sides in world football that have profited most from home grown talents are Ajax and Barcelona, and there’s more than just Johan Cruyff that ties them together. Both these sides have an inimitable style of play, one that requires a lot of co-ordination, team-work, practice and knowledge. So, at both these clubs, the playing style and philosophy is trained into players from their younger days. All the teams at these clubs, from the youngest age level team, to the first team, play with the same formation and same tactics. This creates a sort of uniformity in the training of the players, enabling youth players to make the transition from youth teams to senior teams very smoothly. It also minimises the loss of, and in many cases adds to the synergy of the unit.

Another method of training used at these clubs is putting the players out of position. This serves a dual purpose. Firstly, it helps the player understand the role of the new position. This is beneficial to him when he goes back to his old position, as it gives him an insight into his team-mates thinking and needs. It also allows the player to understand the thinking of an opponent in the same position. It’s why Dennis Bergkamp was tried out as a right back in his younger days. The second rationale behind standardizing such practices is to create skill uniformity. Total voetball, tiki taka, or any other name that suits your fancy requires players across the park to be proficient in all the basic football skills. So attackers must be able to tackle, or defend, and defenders must be able to pass and shoot when required. By standardizing, and training in different positions, clubs add to the skills of footballers.

Obviously, there are many other very successful youth academies at many other clubs too. These may not necessarily use the same methods, or play with the same tactics. So, when you buy a player from what is possibly a different system and training, the new signing will take time to acclimatise (assuming he does so successfully, not always the case). During this time period, results are obviously affected. If the player doesn’t adapt successfully, it’s a permanent dent on the team‘s synergy and finances.

Other factors pointing in the direction of the advancement of home grown players include a better understanding of the club, its culture and environment, and greater love and passion for the home club.