Bojan to play in Belgium instead of Spain
By: Isaiah | April 30th, 2007
According to the Spanish newspaper Sport, the Spanish Football Federation (FEF) has commanded the Bojan Krkic attend the UEFA U-17 tournament in May rather than stay in Barcelona and play for his club team. It seems counterproductive from a footballing standpoint to command that your players attend a fairly meaningless tournament at the expense of their debuts in the top flight of one of the best leagues in the world.
I strongly disagree with the actions taken by the FEF because the purpose of the U-17 organization and team should be to promote development by the youth players rather than be an end in and of itself. Some may say that Spain needs to win an international tournament after so many failures at the full international level, but the time spent in Belgium will not be as productive for Bojan himself or for the full international team later as it would be if Bojan stayed with his club teammates. I don’t know who all is on the U-17 team, but I am 100% positive that they are not as good as Ronaldinho, Messi, et al, so why would you take a player from an obviously comfortable place where he has already shown he can mesh well with the team in action and send him to a foreign country right at crunch time in the league? That makes basically no sense at all, really, and I’m highly disappointed–not as a fan of Barcelona, but as a fan of the game.
Player development at 16 is more important than the Euro2007 U-17 championship. If Bojan is good enough to make his full debut with Barcelona in the coming 3 weeks, it would be better for him to do so than be forced out of the squad. I doubt he’d rather go to Belgium and play in Nou Camp next to some of the greatest players on earth.
Is it right for the FEF to take Bojan away from his debut?
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Comments
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I do think that international tournaments allow players to develop in their own ways, because it’s probably harder to play well and get results when you’re surrounded by team-mates of your own age than by international superstars. For example, Messi owes a lot of his mental qualities, leadership skills and tactical awareness to his incredible development in the 2005 U-20 World Cup, winning it with an Argentinean side that was honestly only half-decent, not great.
Having said that (and played Devil’s Advocate), I think Bojan probably needs to be dividing his time between Barca B and training with the A team, like Messi and Iniesta did, to gradually integrate him, and being away at inconvenient times won’t help that.
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New Zealand
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I would agree in principle, Linda, except that it’s in the middle of the season. As you suggested, Messi and Iniesta developed pretty well in the same system that Bojan is now being removed from. I’m not saying that international tournaments aren’t important, I’m merely suggesting that being surrounded by better players should, theoretically, aid player development more than being surrounded by worse or less developed players.
If the U-17 tournament were during the summer, there could be no argument against being involved in it, but it’s during crucial weeks of the season and being present for those weeks, even if Bojan doesn’t play, would help him to develop more.
At least I think so.
Posted from
United States
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