Barca Universal
·24 February 2025
Beyond transfers: Deco’s blueprint for Barcelona’s long-term success
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Barca Universal
·24 February 2025
As far as the mayhem of transfer windows go, Barcelona’s business in January could be described as quiet. But that’s not to say that it wasn’t prudent.
Even as clubs across Europe helter-skeltered to cover for their injury crises and splashed the cash on panic buys and reinforcements, Barça president Joan Laporta and sporting director Deco chose to sit in the eye of the storm, with a sense of purpose and calm, and carried out renewal operations of the team’s most valuable assets.
Signing a few quality backups wouldn’t have hurt Barcelona’s chances of having a deep squad primed to go the distance this season.
But the faith and confidence placed in the players who signed on the dotted line plays an equally important role in squad dynamics and tells a story of judicious financial use and smart planning.
Having gotten the renewals of Pedri, Gavi, Ronald Araujo and Pau Cubarsi over the line, Barcelona have secured the base of their team for at least another half a decade.
Gavi has just recently returned from his gruesome ACL injury and this renewal will give him a lot of confidence and a sense of unwavering trust that a player of his calibre would need from his club to regain his pre-injury form.
The same could be said for Araujo, who has been usurped in the starting line-up by Inigo Martinez in his absence due to injury and felt disregarded or an afterthought in Hansi Flick’s plans.
Araujo, Cubarsi tied down to new long-term deals. (Photo by Fran Santiago/Getty Images)
It is important to appreciate the sheer defensive shoring the captain brings to the table, probably even more so in this system where the defenders need to cover more ground than before.
The new contract until 2031 does just that and has allowed Barcelona to keep one of their leaders at the club with Juventus having been very close to securing a deal in January.
It would only please the Uruguayan further then, that his teenage centre-back partner Pau Cubarsi also signed a new deal.
Now Cubarsi is a special case. Not only because he is a La Masia graduate or a cemented starter in Flick’s Gala XI, but because Cubarsi is a talent as rare and elusive as Lamine Yamal. And it is crucial the club has recognised that.
Yamal has grabbed the spotlight this season and rightfully so, but Cubarsi is as instrumental a piece of everything good Barcelona has done this season and potentially will go on to achieve if not more.
The talk of talismanic players brings us to Pedri. Make no mistake, the Spaniard’s new contract until 2030 is a real win for the club.
The Canarian has been lights-out good this season, guaranteeing consistent excellence and delivering big performances in key games this season.
One won’t need to look further than Barcelona’s unbeaten start to 2025 to understand the gravity of Pedri’s impact on this side.
During this purple patch of 11 wins from 13, the metronome has been head and shoulders above everyone, with his impressive form a big reason behind Barcelona’s resurgence to the top of La Liga.
Even on off-nights for our usually blistering forward line, a de-facto leader in Pedri carried this team over the line.
Simply put, a fully-fit Pedri in his ubiquitous flow has been a real joy to watch this season and more than merits the extension.
In for the long haul. (Photo by Alex Caparros/Getty Images)
There have been plenty of reasons to be happy as a Barcelona fan at this stage but the fact Cules get to be dazzled by his magic for at least five more years, that is something to celebrate.
Barcelona’s financial issues have been well-documented. A lingering handicap that has prevented the club from functioning at top capacity with regard to key operations off the pitch like signings and registering those signings for a better part of this decade.
So when Barcelona’s record deal with their kit manufacturer Nike was confirmed, followed by the sale of VIP box seats at Camp Nou, the club had effectively returned to the 1:1 Fair Play rule, signalling the return of financial stability.
Therefore, it would have been very easy for the club to be carried away in the January transfer window, although they would have needed to offload one or two stars who are not part of the plans. But credit where it’s due, Barcelona have seemed to have learned from their mistakes.
Laporta and Deco showed refreshing proactivity and smart use of their now more forgiving financial conditions to offer brand-new deals to the most valuable assets of the first team, whose importance in the current market conditions cannot be underestimated.
It is a marked departure from Barcelona’s model of doing business under the former administration of Josep Maria Bartomeu, where they would have easily paid an inflated price for a player, talented as they may be yet either unproven or a sheer misfit, on fat wages that would chew away the club’s treasury.
It was effectively the strategy that brought the club to the precarious financial position the current board has worked tirelessly to get out of.
Barcelona may be on the horizon of a new era for them on the pitch, but this renewed sense of spending indicates a modernized use of financial instruments. A revolution that was long overdue.
Deco hadn’t impressed the Barcelona faithful a whole lot with his work as the sporting director of the club.
After all, following the excellence of Mateu Alemany was always going to be a tall order, given how the Spaniard helped Barcelona rebuild a squad qualified enough to fight for titles with strapped financial reserves.
It was Alemany’s incredible effort in the early years of Laporta’s second coming whose rewards Barcelona reap till this day under Hansi Flick.
Deco working towards securing a bright future for Barcelona. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)
After Vitor Roque’s unfruitful acquisition, Xavi’s distasteful departure and his own lack of vision caught strays in the media and from sections of the fanbase, Deco really needed this win.
Dani Olmo’s arrival in the summer calmed things down and offered some respite but his resolve to solve the contractual problems of some of the team’s A-listers and invaluable components in Pedri, Gavi, Cubarsi and especially Araujo – who was well on his way to Juventus, has garnered massive respect.
Credit where it’s due, Deco could very well have mishandled Barcelona’s restored financial freedom and secured deals that could have put pressure on the club’s accounts straight back.
The fact he prioritised renewing the core of the squad on proportionate and meritorious wages shows he is slowly growing in his role and the club is benefitting handsomely because of it.
These extensions mean that the club looks to secure the base of every winning Barcelona squad for the foreseeable future.
It is also a smart business move from the sporting department as long-term contracts call for multi-figure sums to be paid to acquire services of these contracted players should a need arise to move them on.
A component of the transfer market underappreciated and overlooked at the club, where in the not-so-distant past, they would offer a lucrative deal to an ageing star past his prime only for it to be a financial burden with the management unable to move him on.
It is this refreshing thought-out planning then and Deco’s brilliant work this winter that has redefined what a successful transfer window means for the fanbase.
Proficient running of a modern-day club goes beyond signings and big-name arrivals and it is a cultural change welcomed with open arms at Barcelona.
And with reports indicating that this renewal spree will be followed by talks of extensions for Jules Kounde, Lamine Yamal and Raphinha up next, the former Blaugrana technician’s impressive improvement, Barcelona’s financial health and their commitment to revolutionize their squad management looks set to continue into the summer.