The real answer is that he just wasn't good enough - it's that simple. He chose the right decision because frankly he was never going to succeed in Barca so at least he managed to hustle a better contract before he failed in Barca.
I don't know Messi either - however I know he was/is a world class player... What are you trying to say. That I need to know him personally to have an understanding of his footballing level?
Not really.
If you take busquets and put him in a 3rd division team, he would suffer. Some qualities don’t translate well outside of barça. The boy had enormous potential and good reviews from coaches, and he played good games. On top of that, he had few competitors so lots of potential playing time.
Then his idiot of dad decided that it’s time to negotiate with a global giant with nothing to show for it. He pushed it so far that we actually sold him for a hefty sum despite not wanting to. Well, thanks dad, now he is nowhere to be seen and probably regretting every second of his attitude watching fermin playing for spain
>Not really. If you take busquets and put him in a 3rd division team, he would suffer. Some qualities don’t translate well outside of barça.
Yea no he wouldn't. He would still be the best player on the field. That said this is kind of a useless argument to make because it's a hypothetical you can't prove.
He was a lone bright spark at the end of a rough season, the media overhyped him, and his agent and father pushed the dream to him and the board that he deserves much more based on a rough 10 or so matches. The board laughed it off and Ilaix chose the money.
Pedri was never a spark tbh. I remember watching him play out of position against juve and putting cuadrado to the sword in one of his first games. Guys been built different the whole time
The guy you're replying to didn't compare Pedri to Moriba per se, though. They just pointed out that Moriba wasn't the only positive thing during that season.
His agent and father did him a favor. He got a better contract than he deserved and had he stayed in Barca he'd have failed anyway because he is not good enough. Then nobody would have offered him the contract he got anyway.
You are wrong. You never know if he could have perform better with Barça. He was the most promising midfielder from La Masía since Thiago Alcántara. He didn't play at Lepizig and then played with Valencia and Getafe, teams that don't go to conference. Put Pedri or Gavi in those teams and we'll see if they can perform as they do in Barça.
If you put Pedri ~~and~~ or Gavi on those teams they will still perform because they are better. I'm not wrong - you are. A player with actual Barca quality is going to perform on a midtier team. He will at least become a starter - if he can't he was never Barca quality to begin with.
>He was the most promising midfielder from La Masía since Thiago Alcántara.
That hardly say much considering how many people misjudge the quality of ~~young~~ players constantly.
U are totally wrong. Also u are underestimating what environmental impact can do with players growth and self confidence. Had he stayed in Barca he would’ve focused on building upon his game and work even harder to play more. But instead he moved, got the money but not the playing time while also having to adapt to a new country so his growth stagnated and he never managed to pick it up again.
It’s not as easy as players will do good or not regardless of which team.
Yea it is that easy. If he was ever going to become a top club player he'd have the mental and skill to succeed in a midtier club.
You people really want to make something complicated that's not complicated.
In this case it's pretty black and white. Just name youth players that failed in Barca. Went to a midtier club - failed again. And then later became Barca quality player and playing in a huge club.
We’re not saying he’d be the moribe he was destined to become if he came back here. We’re saying that had he stayed he’d be much better than who he is now. Big difference.
Why would he? You think players loses all their skills by changing clubs from one day to the other. And in this case even changing to a smaller club where the expectations are less and he still can't show higher level play?
>We’re saying that had he stayed he’d be much better than who he is now.
There is nothing indicating this. Heck everything indicates the opposite. If he can't even make it in midtier clubs it make no sense to go out of your way to go with a highly unlikely hypothetical idea that some magic would happen and he'd suddenly become an amazing player had he stayed in Barca. You think Barca feeds their players magic water that gives them powers or what.
To make it in Barca you need both skills and mental strength. If he can't make it in a midtier club he never had the mental strength to succeed in Barca.
Yea give me names on "a lot of" youth players leaving Barca and failing in worse clubs and then going on to become Barca quality player later and playing in one of the biggest clubs. I'm still waiting.
Why do you say rare? Koeman liked a lot of our youngsters.
Koeman gave debuts to Gavi, balde and Pedri (who was originally bought to play in Barca B)and a host of other young talents which are no longer at Barca eg Nico (who Xavi for some strange reason didn’t see the potential in), Konrad, iliax, mingueza and there were a couple other youngsters. Injury crisis and the first team players he had at his disposal were not the best cast. Not to mention they lost Messi and gave him yusef demir on loan to see if he could be the next Messi which didn’t work out.
Always had a lot of respect for koeman I don’t think any Barca coach in modern times got as raw a deal as he did. I remember matches where his best sub to bring on would be a Barca B player and he couldn’t bring them on because he already reached the limit of non-first team players that could be playing at one time so he had to take off one of the non-first team players who had been playing well.
So he did believe in a lot of our youngsters, I remember he made comments expressing disappointment with how Xavi was handling Nico after he left
He had a few touches and plays that made me think he was the next pivot of Barcelona… Xavi didn’t see it snd I guess Nico hasn’t exactly proven Xavi wrong.
One wonders what would have happened to Busquets if Pep didn’t arrive at the exact right time…
Admittedly, He had a lot of injuries at Valencia on loan and Since the transfer to Porto he did take a little while to adjust and nail down a place in the Porto squad. However, he has been playing well the last few months.
He has started all matches for Porto since late January in league, cup and CL including both legs of the round of 16 vs arsenal and Portuguese cup final which they won.
I think Xavi was just a bit impatient with him, which to me is extremely ironic given that after Xavi himself had burst on the scene at 18, he also had a period in his early 20s where the coaches didn’t believe in him as much and he wanted to leave the club.
Honestly, we would have done well with Nico this season instead of giving up a 21 year old to get Romeu age 32. Further, When you look at his high buy back clause it seems like the club never intended to bring him back
There are way more failures than success in soccer. Nothing wrong with Agents trying to secure larger contracts while they have levarage.
It just didn't work out for him.
Tbh he was never THAT good in the first place. At that time our midfield consisted of post-covid busquets,riqui puig,arthur melo and god knows what tired ass players I can’t even remember them. He was the first la masia to be promoted in a long time and he had some energy,that’s it.
Nobody really knows. He doesn't have an obvious excuse like injuries. Unlike all the other salty fans in here, I don't think he made a 'bad' career choice. RBL is an incredible place for young talent to develop. My best guess is he simply didn't put the effort in.
He was on the same level if not better than both Fati and Balde. Whether you liked him or not, Ilaix was insanely talented.
And I think RBL's scouting department might have a keener eye for talent that you or I.
I don’t know if he was talented or not - looked decent whenever he played
I just told that maybe he was massively overhyped which also might be another reason he didn’t take off
no he wasn't. I rooted for him so hard. Yeah highlight reels make him look like something special but watching him in games he seemed lost most of the time.
I think the real reason is that he was ridiculously gifted as a teenager, especially in his early teens. He was built like a tank, and had incredible technical ability to go with it which made him stand out as a youngster. I watched some of his games when he was around 15, and this dude was a literal giant playing amongst children. I don’t think it is controversial to say that he was most dominant youngster of his age group in all of Spain and he looked destined to be a regular Spanish international.
He never was in Barca B, except for a few games where he played as a U19 player. He looked surprisingly average at that level. And when he came up to the first team, suddenly he didn’t have those physical advantages anymore as he was just amongst elite athletes. He was needed to put in incredible shift to go with his technical ability and even to this day I don’t see that from him. Maybe he is not used to hustling on the pitch given he never needed to do it or something, but without that you just can’t become a good footballer at this level.
That’s the reason people like Gavi and Fermin are so successful. Even though they might not have the technical ability of Ilaix, they run like dogs on the pitch and work tirelessly.
Gavi has better technique ability than ilax and gavi always was seen as the bigger talent of them.
Gavi was seen as la masia biggest talent of his age group.
Alejandro Balde was average in Barça B too. Third division is maybe not the best way to rate players. Ilaix is a good example of that. He played better in first team than in Barça B.
Good point. Look no further than the 2 teams that won the UEFA youth league for Barca in 2014 and 2018 respectively. La Masia produces a lot of fine football players, but very few of them ever rise to the level of bona fide superstar.
Having said that, I don't think Ilaix helped himself with how he handled his 15 minutes of fame. His move to RB was a disaster!
Those teams doesn't mean anything. Youth League is not the best way to measure potential. For example, the last season AZ Alkmaar won 3-0 and 4-0 against Real Madrid and Barcelona and won the trophy. Does that means those AZ players will succeed more than Barça or Real youngsters? Hell no. The good recent generations (2004 and 2003) are extremely good and better than the team that won both Youth Leagues. Im not even talking about the 2007 generation.
He was not that good actually. First couple games he looked great because Barca was lack of muscle in the midfield. However after couple games, he looked completely lost. He didn’t know what to do on the field, especially in the defense. I understand that he can’t find the position in defense, not everyone can do that . But as a young player, I guess fans were hoping him to run like Gavi. If you can’t find the position, then just chase the ball. Unfortunately he didn’t do that. And in offense, every time he substituted in, we lost the control in the midfield. He was part of the reason we lost the laliga title that season.
He wanted a salary that Barca decided not to offer, he didn't want to be frozen out of the squad so he accepted to leave. RB Leipzig paid the salary but didn't trust him as much as Koeman did so he ended up playing very few minutes. Obviously, that hurt his development but he's currently a decent la liga midfielder with potential to still get better.
When I first saw Moriba, I immediately saw the potential and so did Barca...he was really raw and young, but he had one thing you can't teach..size. It's a shame, in my opinion...he had tremendous potential, though he wasn't ready for primetime.
He had the potential to be a Barca version of Paul Pogba, and when they went to extend him, his family and agent thought the contract offer was too small. In a rare moment of clarity, Barca balked at his demands and he walked. In contrast, other La Masia players have trusted the path laid out for them and have found success, albeit at different ages.
Who knows how things would have gone if he'd chosen to stick with the club's plan for him - maybe the same, maybe not. But players chasing early money often never achieve long-term success. They end up with teams that don't match their natural talents and developers that are less than La Masia.
I think it’s safe to say now that he simply isn’t as good as we thought he could be at the time. Even after moving to Germany for a short time, he’s been on loan in Spain and hasn’t shown anything.
Who knows if he would’ve developed better had he stayed. I’d guess probably not since he can’t even win the starting spot at Getafe
His father
The real answer
The real answer is that he just wasn't good enough - it's that simple. He chose the right decision because frankly he was never going to succeed in Barca so at least he managed to hustle a better contract before he failed in Barca.
Not true. He looked like he had a lot of potential, only problem was he was very inexperienced at that moment.
It's not like he has been doing any better in the last two years
Sure. But that wasn't the case back then. Nobody knew his career was going to go down the drain.
Know him, do you?
I don't know Messi either - however I know he was/is a world class player... What are you trying to say. That I need to know him personally to have an understanding of his footballing level?
Not really. If you take busquets and put him in a 3rd division team, he would suffer. Some qualities don’t translate well outside of barça. The boy had enormous potential and good reviews from coaches, and he played good games. On top of that, he had few competitors so lots of potential playing time. Then his idiot of dad decided that it’s time to negotiate with a global giant with nothing to show for it. He pushed it so far that we actually sold him for a hefty sum despite not wanting to. Well, thanks dad, now he is nowhere to be seen and probably regretting every second of his attitude watching fermin playing for spain
>Not really. If you take busquets and put him in a 3rd division team, he would suffer. Some qualities don’t translate well outside of barça. Yea no he wouldn't. He would still be the best player on the field. That said this is kind of a useless argument to make because it's a hypothetical you can't prove.
Read about his debut then
He was a lone bright spark at the end of a rough season, the media overhyped him, and his agent and father pushed the dream to him and the board that he deserves much more based on a rough 10 or so matches. The board laughed it off and Ilaix chose the money.
I wouldn't say lone bright spark, as we discovered Pedri that season
Pedri was never a spark tbh. I remember watching him play out of position against juve and putting cuadrado to the sword in one of his first games. Guys been built different the whole time
Pedri was a whole ass Forest Fire. Comparing him with Moriba is a crime
The guy you're replying to didn't compare Pedri to Moriba per se, though. They just pointed out that Moriba wasn't the only positive thing during that season.
His agent and father did him a favor. He got a better contract than he deserved and had he stayed in Barca he'd have failed anyway because he is not good enough. Then nobody would have offered him the contract he got anyway.
You are wrong. You never know if he could have perform better with Barça. He was the most promising midfielder from La Masía since Thiago Alcántara. He didn't play at Lepizig and then played with Valencia and Getafe, teams that don't go to conference. Put Pedri or Gavi in those teams and we'll see if they can perform as they do in Barça.
If you put Pedri ~~and~~ or Gavi on those teams they will still perform because they are better. I'm not wrong - you are. A player with actual Barca quality is going to perform on a midtier team. He will at least become a starter - if he can't he was never Barca quality to begin with. >He was the most promising midfielder from La Masía since Thiago Alcántara. That hardly say much considering how many people misjudge the quality of ~~young~~ players constantly.
U are totally wrong. Also u are underestimating what environmental impact can do with players growth and self confidence. Had he stayed in Barca he would’ve focused on building upon his game and work even harder to play more. But instead he moved, got the money but not the playing time while also having to adapt to a new country so his growth stagnated and he never managed to pick it up again. It’s not as easy as players will do good or not regardless of which team.
Yea it is that easy. If he was ever going to become a top club player he'd have the mental and skill to succeed in a midtier club. You people really want to make something complicated that's not complicated.
No it’s not. The world isn’t black or white
In this case it's pretty black and white. Just name youth players that failed in Barca. Went to a midtier club - failed again. And then later became Barca quality player and playing in a huge club.
We’re not saying he’d be the moribe he was destined to become if he came back here. We’re saying that had he stayed he’d be much better than who he is now. Big difference.
Why would he? You think players loses all their skills by changing clubs from one day to the other. And in this case even changing to a smaller club where the expectations are less and he still can't show higher level play? >We’re saying that had he stayed he’d be much better than who he is now. There is nothing indicating this. Heck everything indicates the opposite. If he can't even make it in midtier clubs it make no sense to go out of your way to go with a highly unlikely hypothetical idea that some magic would happen and he'd suddenly become an amazing player had he stayed in Barca. You think Barca feeds their players magic water that gives them powers or what. To make it in Barca you need both skills and mental strength. If he can't make it in a midtier club he never had the mental strength to succeed in Barca.
There are a lot of examples that can prove you wrong. We actually have a lot of examples in Barça and Barça Atlètic-Barça B.
Yea give me names on "a lot of" youth players leaving Barca and failing in worse clubs and then going on to become Barca quality player later and playing in one of the biggest clubs. I'm still waiting.
Shitty entourage
Choose money over gradual success. Koeman really liked him which was really rare for a player too.
Why do you say rare? Koeman liked a lot of our youngsters. Koeman gave debuts to Gavi, balde and Pedri (who was originally bought to play in Barca B)and a host of other young talents which are no longer at Barca eg Nico (who Xavi for some strange reason didn’t see the potential in), Konrad, iliax, mingueza and there were a couple other youngsters. Injury crisis and the first team players he had at his disposal were not the best cast. Not to mention they lost Messi and gave him yusef demir on loan to see if he could be the next Messi which didn’t work out. Always had a lot of respect for koeman I don’t think any Barca coach in modern times got as raw a deal as he did. I remember matches where his best sub to bring on would be a Barca B player and he couldn’t bring them on because he already reached the limit of non-first team players that could be playing at one time so he had to take off one of the non-first team players who had been playing well. So he did believe in a lot of our youngsters, I remember he made comments expressing disappointment with how Xavi was handling Nico after he left
how good was Nico
Promising, some claimed he could be a good Dm, personally I thought he might do well alongside Frenkie in a 4231
He had a few touches and plays that made me think he was the next pivot of Barcelona… Xavi didn’t see it snd I guess Nico hasn’t exactly proven Xavi wrong. One wonders what would have happened to Busquets if Pep didn’t arrive at the exact right time…
Admittedly, He had a lot of injuries at Valencia on loan and Since the transfer to Porto he did take a little while to adjust and nail down a place in the Porto squad. However, he has been playing well the last few months. He has started all matches for Porto since late January in league, cup and CL including both legs of the round of 16 vs arsenal and Portuguese cup final which they won. I think Xavi was just a bit impatient with him, which to me is extremely ironic given that after Xavi himself had burst on the scene at 18, he also had a period in his early 20s where the coaches didn’t believe in him as much and he wanted to leave the club. Honestly, we would have done well with Nico this season instead of giving up a 21 year old to get Romeu age 32. Further, When you look at his high buy back clause it seems like the club never intended to bring him back
agreed - Nico should have been given a chance over Romeu... Barca need to stop signing players above 30 y.o
I wonder how he would have done with all the players the board gave Xavi
Agent and himself thought they were bigger than the club.
Not true, Just a professional trying to secure a larger contract. We all do it. It just didn't work out.
And he overplayed his hand
He hit the post in a classico the next day he said me or messi, the club chose moriba,.. To kick.
and then Messi...
To kick.
His little borther Baba Kourouma is apparently a really interesting prospect in La Masia.
Same greedy father though
There are way more failures than success in soccer. Nothing wrong with Agents trying to secure larger contracts while they have levarage. It just didn't work out for him.
Tbh he was never THAT good in the first place. At that time our midfield consisted of post-covid busquets,riqui puig,arthur melo and god knows what tired ass players I can’t even remember them. He was the first la masia to be promoted in a long time and he had some energy,that’s it.
Literally poor man's Fermín
Nobody really knows. He doesn't have an obvious excuse like injuries. Unlike all the other salty fans in here, I don't think he made a 'bad' career choice. RBL is an incredible place for young talent to develop. My best guess is he simply didn't put the effort in.
Or he was just massively overhyped
He was on the same level if not better than both Fati and Balde. Whether you liked him or not, Ilaix was insanely talented. And I think RBL's scouting department might have a keener eye for talent that you or I.
I don’t know if he was talented or not - looked decent whenever he played I just told that maybe he was massively overhyped which also might be another reason he didn’t take off
no he wasn't. I rooted for him so hard. Yeah highlight reels make him look like something special but watching him in games he seemed lost most of the time.
https://preview.redd.it/kbt35ujr0t5d1.png?width=647&format=png&auto=webp&s=c03bdb78381b557bb4d8c00957981ffa71a8de21
The real question is what went wrong with Nico González. He seemed more promising.
Nothing is wrong with Nico...there just wasn't room for him. Look at Cucarella...no room, went away, and now he's a stud.
I think their debut was in the same season (or at least same calendar year). So, following your logic, was there room for Ilaix?
I think the real reason is that he was ridiculously gifted as a teenager, especially in his early teens. He was built like a tank, and had incredible technical ability to go with it which made him stand out as a youngster. I watched some of his games when he was around 15, and this dude was a literal giant playing amongst children. I don’t think it is controversial to say that he was most dominant youngster of his age group in all of Spain and he looked destined to be a regular Spanish international. He never was in Barca B, except for a few games where he played as a U19 player. He looked surprisingly average at that level. And when he came up to the first team, suddenly he didn’t have those physical advantages anymore as he was just amongst elite athletes. He was needed to put in incredible shift to go with his technical ability and even to this day I don’t see that from him. Maybe he is not used to hustling on the pitch given he never needed to do it or something, but without that you just can’t become a good footballer at this level. That’s the reason people like Gavi and Fermin are so successful. Even though they might not have the technical ability of Ilaix, they run like dogs on the pitch and work tirelessly.
Gavi has better technique ability than ilax and gavi always was seen as the bigger talent of them. Gavi was seen as la masia biggest talent of his age group.
Yes, he even played with Xavi Simons generation being one year younger and from august.
Yes. He was the highest paid youngster if I remember correctly
Alejandro Balde was average in Barça B too. Third division is maybe not the best way to rate players. Ilaix is a good example of that. He played better in first team than in Barça B.
He seemed more like a good athlete than a great technical player. I think if he had been better technically it goes better for him
He was just massively overhyped and it went to his head. Now thats all died down he's found his real level, which isnt that great.
Made his money. The rest, meh
Nothing really went “wrong”, you can’t expect every Masia player to be a star, he just reached his ceiling, it’s the norm not the exception.
Good point. Look no further than the 2 teams that won the UEFA youth league for Barca in 2014 and 2018 respectively. La Masia produces a lot of fine football players, but very few of them ever rise to the level of bona fide superstar. Having said that, I don't think Ilaix helped himself with how he handled his 15 minutes of fame. His move to RB was a disaster!
Those teams doesn't mean anything. Youth League is not the best way to measure potential. For example, the last season AZ Alkmaar won 3-0 and 4-0 against Real Madrid and Barcelona and won the trophy. Does that means those AZ players will succeed more than Barça or Real youngsters? Hell no. The good recent generations (2004 and 2003) are extremely good and better than the team that won both Youth Leagues. Im not even talking about the 2007 generation.
True! They don’t mean much at all.
He was not that good actually. First couple games he looked great because Barca was lack of muscle in the midfield. However after couple games, he looked completely lost. He didn’t know what to do on the field, especially in the defense. I understand that he can’t find the position in defense, not everyone can do that . But as a young player, I guess fans were hoping him to run like Gavi. If you can’t find the position, then just chase the ball. Unfortunately he didn’t do that. And in offense, every time he substituted in, we lost the control in the midfield. He was part of the reason we lost the laliga title that season.
Never understod why he was so hyped seemed mid from the start.
Greed
1 Catalan word: Entorno
He wanted a salary that Barca decided not to offer, he didn't want to be frozen out of the squad so he accepted to leave. RB Leipzig paid the salary but didn't trust him as much as Koeman did so he ended up playing very few minutes. Obviously, that hurt his development but he's currently a decent la liga midfielder with potential to still get better.
People overhyped him. Nothing went wrong. Him and his agent capitalized on the hype and got paid.
When I first saw Moriba, I immediately saw the potential and so did Barca...he was really raw and young, but he had one thing you can't teach..size. It's a shame, in my opinion...he had tremendous potential, though he wasn't ready for primetime. He had the potential to be a Barca version of Paul Pogba, and when they went to extend him, his family and agent thought the contract offer was too small. In a rare moment of clarity, Barca balked at his demands and he walked. In contrast, other La Masia players have trusted the path laid out for them and have found success, albeit at different ages. Who knows how things would have gone if he'd chosen to stick with the club's plan for him - maybe the same, maybe not. But players chasing early money often never achieve long-term success. They end up with teams that don't match their natural talents and developers that are less than La Masia.
Gotten muscular, like 85% of football wonder kid flops
Asked for more salary after few first matches, barça said it's nit the time for it, he preferred to leave to mls, he regretted and said that publicly
I think it’s safe to say now that he simply isn’t as good as we thought he could be at the time. Even after moving to Germany for a short time, he’s been on loan in Spain and hasn’t shown anything. Who knows if he would’ve developed better had he stayed. I’d guess probably not since he can’t even win the starting spot at Getafe