The Time Barca's "Next Iniesta" Chose Fame over Football

it's Ricky P she's going to LA Galaxy can you tell us more about this it has come as a surprise to some he was one of the most exciting prospects of laasia a few years ago but uh he's one of the biggest disappointments in this last year it had been years since the likes of Thiago SES fabrigas inesta buset and Chavi had broken through and represented the Midfield greatness that lamaa could create Ricky's abilities on the pitch brought back the itch of nostalgia for so many Kay and man I can't blame them for that born in Barcelona Rickard Pooch Marty or Ricky for sure joined lamia at 13 years old and Rose healthily through the ranks before making his debut for the first team on December 5th 2018 from that point on you could hear pooch's names being shouted from the raptures at the camp new pretty much every match that team was severely struggling under Kik setian playing incredibly narrow football and just hoping that the likes of lonel Messi or Anu fat could somehow save them and create some greatness and win matches that way and many times that did work but fans were still left asking for more something that they believed Ricky could offer the squad he was slight agile and fantastic on the ball pretty much everything that we've become accustomed to a good lamaa Talent having on paper or at least in the minds of us fans Ricky could be the Difference Maker for this team in the few cameos he made he was exciting and looked to make things happen he connected the Deep Midfield of rakitic and buset to the difference makers in the attack Messi and Suarez Ricky made quick decisions incredibly well and was about as press resistant of a player as you possibly could have been during this time CES fabrigas came out praising Pooch saying Ricky can become like Iniesta if coaches trust him I'm sure he has what it takes to succeed he just has to have the right attitude and keep improving however despite the High Praise he wasn't a perfect player kumin criticized him though indirectly for not working hard enough to improve to do what CES said he needed to do there were also times where the team opened the door for Ricky to leave because he wasn't getting the playing time to gain experience and game time somewhere else where he could make that Improvement but Ricky choose not to he might have believed that one day he could make it at Barcelona or maybe he just didn't want to leave his hometown either way he tried to stay and make it happen but it would never happened for him see Ricky for all the excitement he brought onto the pitch he was pretty poor off of the ball both in possession and out of it his spatial awareness was not at the highest level often occupying the same space as a teammate or not rotating correctly and he really struggled to press in any sort of effective way at all Pooch wasn't necessarily lazy he tried to press but he just wasn't good at it at all and on top of that versatility wasn't exactly his best trait either he could really only play one one position and that's really not acceptable in today's football he wanted to play that left interior midfielder in a 4-33 or the top of the Midfield in a 442 Diamond that might be okay under some coaches and in some teams if they want to build around you but that was never going to happen for Pooch at Barcelona especially when they had lonel Messi looking at the Young midfielders that have been successful at Barcelona recently one of the most obvious traits of theirs is their versatility in the past 2 years gav has been asked to play as a Winger interior and at the base of a double pivot among other positions that I'm sure I'm forgetting and pedri is a very similar story when Chavi came into the squad his strict positional play needed some versatility from his midfielders which is why we saw the likes of pedri and Gabi Thrive under him but the likes of Pooch were forgotten at this point it was clear he had to leave Barcelona now 22 years old he either had to get some playing time or his career might have been over however instead of going to a lower table Spanish or Eng club or even a weaker League team like PB or Benfica where he could still play Champions League football he chose to go to the LA Galaxy that's a very interesting move to say the least the LA Galaxy is not a good team doesn't have an interesting project like inter Miami and more importantly than anything else is as far away from European football as it could possibly get Pooch very easily could have followed in the footsteps of Carlos Alena and Dennis Suarez to lower table sides in La ligo where they could try to to prove themselves before hopefully making a move to a bigger Club eventually but Ricky chose something else something different not to say that one is better than the other but maybe Pooch just thrived in the spotlight he loved the attention he got at Barcelona and wanted to get something similar elsewhere so he went to LA where he could be the guy when he made the move I knew the American fans would love him not only because he was coming from one of the most famous clubs in the world but because he is a fun and exciting player to watch He's also a good-looking and charismatic guy someone who could be the face of a franchise here in the United States and that is exactly what the club tried to do just look at the inter Miami vers LA Galaxy game from a few weeks ago the headline is lonel Messi vers Ricky pooch in what world would we have ever seen that in Europe that would have never happened if he went to play for the likes of hatf and they faced PSG and some weird friendly I don't care how well would have played for hfe his name probably would have been forgotten a little bit and not held at the highest of heights like it is in this match but in the MLS where they are starved of the very best talent Ricky Pooch can be that number one guy however that doesn't come without tradeoffs cesk said that Pooch could become like Nesta one day if he improved and with the LA Galaxy he has definitely improved his final ball is much better he is a much more Progressive passer and is quite a decent finisher as well but all of this Improvement doesn't really matter because I don't think it will be taken seriously by a top European side it's not like he's zaton who already proved himself Ricky failed in Europe and then he left I'm not optimistic about the door still being open should he want to move back in the future he has also not at all improved defensively and a lot of that has to do with the fact that the LA Galaxy don't really give him the responsibility to defend they were able to build that LA Galaxy team around him allowing him to really excel at the good things but not have to improve his overall game completely because the LA Galaxy weren't a great team and didn't have a ton of prospects when he came Ricky was basically given the keys to the castle so I imagine he can play whatever position he wants he even takes pens for the side and I'm going to be honest I've watched a bunch of them I don't think he's great at taking pens but nevertheless all this creating a team around Ricky is going to be another barrier to his entry back into Europe because no top side is going to build a team around Ricky Pooch anymore maybe you could argue that his attacking abilities could slide in for a role similar to OD guard's at Arsenal or even maybe kdb's at city but his defensive frailties remain and would keep him out of those sides in that inter Miami match he was walking alongside Messi for like half of the match that is unacceptable in top level football un unless you are the guy and that's okay because he is good even though the LA Galaxy isn't great with him in the squad but no TOS side is going to ever do that to him and I don't think he's going to ever want to go to a team where he doesn't have that I think he probably likes being this idolized public figure he had it when he was a kid at Barcelona and now he has it in the MLS and should for the next several years if he stays with his attacking intelligence only getting better and him still only being 24 he has several years ahead of him to be great but I firmly believe that if he stayed in Europe he could have one day played for a pretty solid European side if that's what he had wanted to do and that's that probably wasn't and it may never be that makes a little bit of sense too because it's hard to build around a player to find the perfect formula of players and tactics to make that work and sometimes that's okay if you have Leonel Messi being that guy but that's not Ricky Pooch or at least it's not him yet now I don't want you to think I'm saying he made the wrong choice he just made a unique one players in Europe very rarely do something like this we saw with Oscar going to China to make that bag almost immediately in his prime but I think it's being in the spotlight I think that's what he likes and you know it's hard to speculate exactly on his emotions and his feelings but I think it's telling that he chose to go to the MLS immediately and I think there is a big reason for that and I don't necessarily think it was a sporting one I think he likes the profile that he has and there's nothing wrong with that it's just different from what we're used to and I could imagine for a lot of koles It's upsetting because we wanted to see him breakr at Barcelona but he didn't proved to be that guy or have the ability to pick up that game quick enough he might have been able to do that if he went to a lower Table La Liga side or even went to the Premier League but I don't think that path is in front of him anymore now big shout out to the purist football uh he wrote an article a few years about the what happens to Ricky Pooch at Barcelona and I would not have been able to understand so much about him tactically if it weren't for his article but if you enjoyed this video go check out this one about the hunt for the new face of FC Barcelona it goes through a wild history of Barcelona trying to find the formula to create the next Messi in all their failures leading up to the guy we have now but thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one peace

Channel: Robby Lou

Views: 99,321

Keywords: what happened to riqui puig, riqui puig barcelona, riqui puig la galaxy, la masia midfielder, robby lou, robby lou fermin lopez, robby lou pau cubarsi

Id: Ujj7LvB6NOo

Length: 9min 45sec (585 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 30 2024