The importance of youth academies has become a focal point for many clubs across the landscape of football. Changes to the nature of finances within football have increased the necessity to make sure there is a pipeline of talent coming from a club’s own youth ranks in order to foster sustainable competitiveness.
Barcelona, as a club, has over the last couple years highlighted just how much having a healthy academy can offset financial losses by being able to bring in top talent internally instead of having to spend massive fees, especially in situations where clubs are strapped for cash and fees for top talent reach excessive levels. The Catalan club has seen quite a few exceptional talents join the ranks of the first team in recent years, including the likes of Pau Cubarsi, Fermin Lopez, Marc Casado and Lamine Yamal, all of which have done their part to play an integral role in the club’s current resurgence this season.
In an interview with Ruhr Nachrichten, it’s no surprise then that head of youth development Thomas Broich says that Borussia Dortmund will seek to follow a similar model to that which Barcelona has championed via La Masia to help reinforce the club’s internal structures. According to Broich, Dortmund need to be able to implement this model if they are to be able to compete at all:
"Thats the team [Barcelona], that we need to look at right now. If we say it's not possible anyway, and we don't think it's possible, then we don't even need to compete."Thomas Broich
Since joining Barcelona, head coach Hansi Flick has relied very heavily on the academy, with injury crises making it even more imperative for the former Bayern Munich and Germany National team head coach to be able to find quick and effective solutions. Players such as Lopez and Casado have filled the ranks at Barcelona to cover for injuries to players such as Gavi & Frenkie de Jong.
Dortmund have already started to begin the shift back to more academy reliance, with players such as Kjell Wätjen and Cole Campbell the latest examples of players getting minutes. Like with the aforementioned players at Barcelona, these minutes are due to a hefty injury crisis, but the hope is that they can pin down a more permanent place in the starting 11.
It’s one thing to simply say that the club wants to make Dortmund’s academy model in the image of La Masia, but it’s another to crack the code for just what that means and what Dortmund would be looking to implement in this vein. A report from 2017 described some of the key tenets of La Masia’s youth regiment in detail, which included a focus on education and making sure that studies balance out football as well as pacing young careers at a sensible rate. On the actual football end of things, adhering to attacking principles and learning to out-maneuver more physically imposing opponents are also cited as lessons that La Masia looks to instill in its academy graduates to cultivate "sporting character".
These tenets however were derived from the type of football that Barcelona wanted to play at the time, and under Hansi Flick this has changed to some degree. The core elements of building a well-rounded football education remain, but Barcelona’s financial situation was a key motivator in the club relying on the academy once again to produce first-team talents, and while Dortmund find themselves in a much healthier financial situation, the aforementioned injuries could be a catalyst for seeing more youth academy players get the chance to succeed in the top flight.
The other key to La Masia’s success is ascribing to a specific style and identity. Dortmund, since the days of Jürgen Klopp, has lacked a specific identity. This identity would constantly shift as the club looked to find their Klopp replacement. Under Edin Terzić in particular, the club veered away from its attacking principles and lost its identity on the pitch entirely, and it’s so far struggled to find an identity under Nuri Şahin as well. Dortmund must find this identity and implement it from top to bottom, including academy level, so that players are brought up to fit into the style of play Dortmund wants to ascribe to from very early on, making it more likely that their transition into the first team is more seamless.
In past interviews, Broich has already shown that his own vision very much aligns with the tenets of La Masia that we’ve discussed, particularly those that indicate players need to be handled with care in terms of when they make the jump to the first team. This also can cause problems however, when top talents feel they are ready to make the jump to professional football much sooner than perhaps the club thinks they are ready. As with the case of Paris Brunner, without the proper reassurances, the club could end up losing top talents and hurting their chances of producing first-team stars, which makes it a very fine line to walk in a world filled with impatient footballers.
Dortmund does seem to be on the right path when it comes to acquiring talent, with youngsters Ike Ousmane Diallo, the aforementioned Cole Campbell (who’s already made his senior debut) and Samuele Inácio joining the youth ranks. These sorts of inclusions have been helpful in offsetting departures like Brunner. if Broich, and in extension Dortmund, can cultivate these players to reach their full potential and encourage the growth and development of local Ruhr youth that one day see the first team as Broich plans, then we’ll be able to count his restructuring as a substantial success.
Of course, Broich is very much aware that this sort of academy transformation cannot and will not take place overnight. He did indicate that the club needs to start somewhere, and he believes it will be worth it in the long haul:
"Lets start something here. It's not something that can be done overnight or even in. a few years. But lets try it for the next five, ten, fifteen years."Thomas Broich
Broich’s perception of how to re-model Dortmund’s youth setup is a promising indicator that the club is moving in the right direction; a direction that will see more youth players make the first team as a whole, with a focus on cultivating players with connections to the region. These sorts of players would bring more local identity to the side and hopefully help fill in the gaps this squad has, with the goal for them to be part of the story that pushes this club back in the right direction of success and competitiveness. To do this, Dortmund will have to find it's identity so that these players can be shown a developmental trajectory that will see them become capable of making a meaningful impact in this vein.