'Barcelona has priority on 39 players and owns a percentage of transfer rights #Angelici' read the message from the official club account, fitting neatly into the 140-character allowance. Amid talk of shared philosophies, projects, collaboration and long-term planning, Boca Juniors president Daniel Angelici was outlining the finer details on the new partnership between his club and FC Barcelona.
Flanked by Barcelona director Jordi Mestre and the Boca youth system director Jorge Raffo, Angelici announced the agreement last week, just days after FIFA published new figures on club spending from 2011. The study revealed $3bn was spent in transfers across the globe last year, and FIFA reported players from Brazil and Argentina compromised 20% of all transactions.
So while it makes good business sense for European clubs to forge partnerships with clubs in South America, securing talent at a young age and at a preferential price, how does the 'strategic alliance,' as described by Boca last week, benefit them as well?
The key to the partnership is Jorge Raffo, whom Daniel Angelici installed as the new youth system coordinator after winning club presidential elections last December.
Lionel Messi found it difficult adapting to life in Europe following his move from Argentina. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)
In Maxi Rolón, a skilful forward also from Rosario just like Messi, the academy had its first player to graduate. He is now a highly-rated member of the Barcelona under-17 squad.
Yet the academy came at a high price. The $1.3m annual expenditure on the academy was deemed too high by Barcelona president Sandro Rosell, who visited the facilities while in Argentina for last year’s Copa America to make up his mind as to whether it would continue operating.
With presidential elections nearing at Boca, the decision to bring the FC Barcelona Juniors Luján project to an end represented an opportunity for Daniel Angelici's campaign. It was there that the agreement started to take shape.
Presented to the media last week, the deal sees Boca incorporate 39 players into their youth team ranks, players who were previously under the wing of Barcelona. Boca also take on the first class facilities at La Candela, not to mention the coaching system and training, at zero cost to the club. In return, Barcelona has first option on the players, and also a percentage of transfer rights.
For Boca, it advances their youth system project, where Raffo will look to transfer the Barcelona model over to the club, instilling a uniform style of play and coaching at all age levels. "The process of forming players takes 10 years," said Raffo last week, before adding that Boca had identified players aged between 12 and 16 that will help Boca shorten that time frame.
This is not the first time Boca have undertaken such a transformation of the youth system, and the most recent example offers a promising lesson.
Juan Roman Riquelme, part of Mauricio Macri's revolutionary vision for Boca. (Photo by Juan Mabromata/AFP Images)
In 1995, Mauricio Macri won the Boca presidency with the club in crisis, having won just one league title since 1981. As he went about modernising and transforming the club, he dreamt of a Boca team made up of youth team products. To accelerate the process of transforming the first team he inherited (Maradona, Caniggia and company), he put together a package for the purchase of 15 teenage players at a price of $3 million. Nine in total came from Argentinos Juniors including a young Juan Román Riquelme. Boca also incorporated the famous Club Parque into its structure, where Ramón Maddoni coached, amongst many others, the likes of Carlos Tevez and Fernando Gago in their first years with a ball.
Macri's investment paid off, as did his transformation of the club, winning 16 trophies during his presidency. The same group of players brought in for $3 million were later sold for $30 million.
Curiously, as Macri revamped the youth system, he rid the club of the training facilities that Boca had used for thirty years, the same ones Barcelona chose for its academy - La Candela.
So it is that Boca return to the complex, with the aim of accelerating the progress of the youth teams, but there is a challenge for Boca in the current climate. Jorge Raffo warned last week that Argentine youth football "is in crisis".
"The problem in Argentina is not the talent," says Any Lumetto who reports on Boca's youth teams, "the problem on the whole is investment in the infrastructure, and the pressure clubs have to sell. There is no time to consolidate players in the first team. The crisis is economic."
The deal with Barcelona is a springboard for Boca’s youth program, one that has long produced a number of world class players. Just in the current squad are a number of players challenging for a place in the first team – Nico Colazo (despite recently suffering a serious knee injury), Nicolás Blandi, Juan Sánchez Miño, Orlando Gaona Lugo and Sergio Araujo amongst the prospects. In the reserves there are high hopes for Franco Fragapane, a member of the Argentina U20 squad.
Yet therein lies the gamble, because the current crop of players on the edge of the first team are the product of the work of Jorge Griffa, the coach and scout whom Macri brought to Boca. Entrusting Jorge Raffo with the new project inevitably led to Griffa’s departure.
In taking this decision, Boca’s infrastructure at youth team level has undoubtedly been given an enormous boost. When looking at past links between Barcelona and Boca, thoughts go to Maradona and Riquelme, although clearly at Barcelona it is the Next Messi they are after. Whether there is, or can be, a next Messi at all is an entirely different question altogether.
