Anonymous wrote:Part of the secret sauce that everyone is looking for is that the actual La Masia and the actually "off-La Masia" programs across the street (like the off-broadway shows) is purely the fact that the kids in those programs live and breathe soccer every single day of their lives.
This is like growing up in inner city Los Angeles and dreaming of one day playing for the Lakers or in the NBA. You go out and there is a street ball culture with literally thousands of people out competing out on the courts every day, and parents training their kids at home as soon as they can walk so maybe they have a chance at something.
You can take the best of Coach K's basketball academy curriculum or whatever and take it overseas to another country and open a basketball school - but you can't replace the living and breathing of a sport and waking up in the morning idolizing the stars and aspiring to be a celebrity with potentially a million dollar contract waiting for you if you make it. The MINIMUM rookie salary is like 800K.
https://basketball.realgm.com/nba/info/minimum_scale
this is real money. and celebrity status, basically. kids are chasing this wanting to reach that goal.
The same absolutely applies in Spain for soccer. Barcelona players are idolized and make millions of dollars and are celebrities.
So, you keep the training methods but have to water them down to the less skilled average american player and you also remove the chasing of the carrot for the financial reward and quasi-celebrity status, and you don't have much left other than a training business that is simply here to make money.