Barcelona showing signs and symptoms of the "Too much Money Syndrome"

Football used to be a sport played by 22 team men or women on a rectangular shaped grassy pitch. Now, football is a global busine

ss with thousands of investors, billions of fans and loads loads loads of ca$h.

Money has been known to corrupt even the most virtuous of men; used as an incentive, it possesses the latent evil required to put a dent in the integrity of an Angel or in this case Barcelona(not Angels).

There use to be a time when Real Mad(Madrid) were the only perennial big spenders in the Spanish league, often forking out large sums to bring in players for their Galactico Project as it's called, often breaking transfer records but of course often achieving relative success with the model and only had Barcelona to contend with. Meanwhile at Barca, a lot of pride was taken from their own model, players with the "Barca DNA" like uncle Xavi calls it were churned out of the famed La Masia academy and sprinkled with a little star dust from outside. Basically, the players brought into the team often fitted into the model of the squad.

In the early 2000s, Real Mad had something of slump due to the failings of the Galactico Project, expensive signings were made here n there but with returns being few and far as Barcelona were in total control of proceedings in World football.
To paint the picture, we go back to when La Masia totally dominated Galactico over n over again, players like Messj, Xavi and Iniesta represented the La Masia model while others like Ronaldinho and Deco were the star dust from outside but blended into the model, there was a style of play, a pattern used in acquiring players and it worked. Meanwhile just over at the Capital, Real Mad made signings upon signings to stay competitive, Players like Robinho, Julio Baptista, Robben came in at different times for exorbitant fees(as at the time) but didn't quite make much of an impact, Real Mad were constantly playing catch up to Barcelona and the La Masia model, it seemed then that no matter what happens at Madrid their Catalan Neighbours had a better response. Fast forward a few years and there seems to be a reversal in fortunes.
Real Mad are of course still open to making expensive additions to their squad, there seems to be a pattern to it, young players like Ceballos, Vasquez and Asensio are gems that would have normally ended up at Barcelona. At Barcelona, the amount of transfer failures in recent times is surprisingly plenty in recent times, players like; Arda Turan, Aleix Vidal, Jeremy Mathieu, Paco Alcacer and Andre Gomes havent contributed much to the cause of the team for various reasons while the recent sale of Neymar for a world record sum will no doubt make Barcelona a target for any team they intend to do business with.

 In the not so distant past, the Barca squad was almost exclusively players from their famed youth Academy but in recent times, there's been a shift from promoting youth products and a dependence on getting from the outside.

The old guard are almost all gone, Messi, Iniesta and Pique are already in their 30s and there doesn't seem to be any other La Masia Product having much of an impact in the current squad. The times have changed, sadly Barcelona have changed with it, mon€y has come into the game to stay and the time of loyalty and representing the badge is all but over.