24.07.2010 14:31

Vilanova: “The B players go like rockets”

Jaume Marcet

Guardiola and Tito Vilanova have been using several reserve team players in their first preseason training sessions. This is offering them a great chance to teach the youngsters how things operate in the first team.

Guardiola and Tito Vilanova are both huge fans of the youth structure. They grew up through it themselves and so it is only natural for their coaching plans to consider the club’s home produced talent. There are 19 players from Barça B involved in preseason training at the moment, and that means a great chance to observe their progress.

The whole team

This year has not been a matter of just picking about eight reserve players to make up the numbers. Tito Vilanova told Barça TV that the circumstances are different this time: “Barça B could not start with just four or five players, and as we need to hold proper training sessions, we called them all up”.

Profound knowledge

It is proving a useful project for the coaching staff. Vilanova says “we already know them from training and from watching B team matches, but it is always good to make direct contact and include them in the first team’s tactics, and that’s very useful in case we ever need them during the week”.

Highly motivated

The coaches have admired the motivation among the reserve players. “As you can image, they are super-motivated. They have seen players like Pedro and Busquets make the grade, and all of the reserve team players are hoping they will be the next, that’s only logical … some of these B team players go like rockets”.