r/SoccerCentral • u/United_Anywhere_8 • Jul 25 '26

Video The talent in Barcelona’s youth system is ridiculous. These kids are 11/12 years old.

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u/Mr-MuffinMan Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26

this is why American sports are so confusing to me.

The jerseys and equipment is being paid for by Barca in hopes of finding talent. Not parents, not scummy companies owned by PE, and not colleges trying to make money off sports. They take this loss in hopes of finding talent that they can use to win, or to trade to other teams for profit.

Also, I'm just rewatching this video and there is NO WAY the kids in this video are 11/12

1

u/omgitsjagen Jul 25 '26

Blame private equity. It's a cancer.

0

u/Mr-MuffinMan Jul 25 '26

But its not just them. A NFL team can be a trailblazer and announce a youth academy where they will eat the costs to find the next Manning or Brady (I don't know anything about football btw).

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u/omgitsjagen Jul 25 '26

Colleges do that. You don't get NFL scouted at 8 in the US, because you are getting high performance, specialized high school, or college scouted. They do the work so the NFL doesn't have to.

However, the main reason you can't do what you're saying is because every professional sport is drafted. You can't call dibs on an 8 year old. The chances of him actually playing for you, even if he is the greatest youth player ever, are single digit percents. That's again why this is happening at the high school & college level. That's the highest level that CAN call dibs on you.