'Pavóns and Zidanes'

The “best league in the world” brag took a bit of a beating as the Premier League teams who were unfortunate enough to be paired with La Liga clubs lost their Champions League ties by an aggregate of 20 goals to nine.

At some point soon, it will dawn on the English organisations that the best way to future proof isn’t to buy success, but breed success.

With the introduction of Financial Fair Play (FFP), the current regulations Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), and the next incarnation, Squad Cost Ratio, football institutions need to find a way to balance the books or face the consequences.

In the Premier League, the answer is to find a way around the rules which will state that only 85 per cent of the revenue can be spent on the players. They will continue to spend over the odds to pack out the squads. If a player didn’t cost over 35 million pounds, he won’t register with the fans.

In Spain, inflated transfer fees are a thing of the past; clubs are thinking out of the financial box. Yes, Real Madrid invested in the likes of Dean Huijsen (62 million euros) and Álvaro Carreras (50 million euros), but both are relative youngsters. Barcelona broke the bank to spend 25 million euros on goalkeeper Joan Garcia. But an English club is likely to spend twice that amount on a first-choice goalkeeper.

Barcelona’s reliance on kids was a necessity when they hit rock-bottom: Xavi Hernández promoted an array of youth players; Hansi Flick has continued the tradition.

This week against Newcastle Utd, they fielded their youngest-ever Champions League starting XI, with an average age of 25 years and 18 days. It would have been much lower if they hadn’t selected the 37-year-old Robert Lewandowski!

Bear in mind that Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsí, and Marc Bernal made their debuts at the ages of 15, 16 and 17. Now, Yamal is so experienced that he was chosen as penalty taker at the age of 18, Cubarsí is an established international at 19, and Bernal scored his first Champions League goals at the age of 18.

La Masia, the Barcelona academy, has long been the envy of world football. Eight of the 16 players utilised against Newcastle had come through the system. It has long been the desire of the Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez to school his own players. One of his early proclamations was to have a team of “Pavóns and Zidanes”; in other words, youth players and superstars.

Previous managers have been reluctant to promote talent, but interim boss Álvaro Arbeloa has made it his selling point. When facing the conundrum of 10 injured senior players, his predecessors would have flogged the remaining stars to exhaustion. He bravely gambled on calling up players from La Fábrica – the Madrid academy.

Thiago Pitarch, 18, has now started five successive games and keeps his place on merit; Dani Yáñez, who is the same age, made a sensational introduction by setting up a goal against Elche minutes after coming on. Diego Aguado, 19, César Palacios, 21, and Manuel Ángel, 22, have also benefitted from Arbeloa trusting their abilities.

Compare the approach above at Spain’s biggest two clubs to the issues Premier League teams are having... Several are fighting accusations that they have circumnavigated regulations to bring outstanding teenage talent to their clubs - and how many of those players are trusted to play in the first team? The aggregate scores of Real Madrid 5 Man City 1; Barcelona 8 Newcastle 3; and Atlético Madrid 7 Tottenham 5 tell a story.