Youthful Barcelona Welcome Pochettino’s Parisians

Barcelona’s young stars have shined for them in recent months after a difficult start for manager Ronald Koeman.

Koeman took over at the Nou Camp in August last year, arriving already as a Barcelona legend due to his time playing for the Spanish’ giants. Their early season form was inconsistent and may have been due to the hangover from the Lionel Messi transfer saga during the summer transfer window, in which Messi decided to stay.

After last season’s humiliation in the Champions League to Bayern Munich, where they lost 8-2, it was clear that Barcelona were in a stage of transition and needed to re-evaluate the squad and philosophy after being on top of European football for so long.

Koeman left his job as Holland manager to take over a club where he spent the majority of his playing career. The former Dutch manager did have a similar task when he took over at Southampton, after they lost four key players and still managed to get them into Europe for the first time since 2003.

In that horrific Semi-Final, the starting eleven had an average age of 29.1, Koeman was out to change that.  the whole squad this season have an average age of just 25.33, which is the youngest squad Barcelona have had in a decade and in doing so have reaped the rewards, watching some of the best young talents in world football.

Koeman started his tenure at Barcelona in a 4-2-3-1 formation but after just picking up 14 points in ten league games and a 3-1 defeat to Juventus in the Champions League, Koeman was forced to change to a 4-3-3, which allowed the full backs to get forward much more and meant Sergio Busquets could go back to his anchoring role.

The change in shape also gave Frankie De Jong more freedom to roam more in midfield and gives Koeman more opportunity to use the wingers Antione Griezmann, Ousmane Dembele, Trincao and Pedri fighting for places to join Messi in a front three.

The likes of Ansu Fati, Pedri, Francisco Trincao and Sergino Dest just to name a few, have shone for the Catalonian side and been the poster boys for them this season. There are no surprises that Messi remains top goal scorer for Barcelona but the blend of experience and young talent is very well balanced and not to be slept on in terms of going far in this Champions League campaign.

Barca have suffered with some long-term injuries with Gerard Pique and Fati being out since the end of November. Barca find themselves short at the back with 21-year-old Ronald Araujo, who has featured frequently for Barcelona this season, also side-lined along with Sergi Roberto. Koeman called upon De Jong to drop back to centre back since the injury to Araujo.

There is history between Ronald Koeman and new Paris Saint-Germain manager Mauricio Pochettino as Koeman took over from Pochettino as Southampton manager and seemed to be close because of this but with Pochettino being a former Espanyol player and manager, I expect it to be a real battle between two European giants.

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