FC Barcelona Team Analysis

Background

FC Barcelona (Futbol Club Barcelona ) is a football club founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, Catalan, German, and English footballers led by Joan Gamper[@fcbarce2025]. The club motto “Més que un club” meaning “More than a club”[@fcbarce2025].

FC Barcelona Player 2023-2024

Table below shows football player that plays for FC Barcelona.

library(dplyr)

Attaching package: 'dplyr'

The following objects are masked from 'package:stats':

    filter, lag

The following objects are masked from 'package:base':

    intersect, setdiff, setequal, union

#|eval: False

dataset <- read.csv("../../../../data/Players2024.csv")
subset <- dataset |> filter(club=="Futbol Club Barcelona")
subset <- subset |> select(-club)

colnames(subset) <- c("Name", "Birth Date", "Height", "Positions","Nationality","Age")#change the column name

subset |> knitr::kable("html")

Name	Birth Date	Height	Positions	Nationality	Age
Robert Lewandowski	1988-08-21	185	Attack	Poland	36
Wojciech Szczęsny	1990-04-18	196	Goalkeeper	Poland	34
Marc-André ter Stegen	1992-04-30	187	Goalkeeper	Germany	32
Iñigo Martínez	1991-05-17	182	Defender	Spain	33
Andreas Christensen	1996-04-10	187	Defender	Denmark	28
Iñaki Peña	1999-03-02	184	Goalkeeper	Spain	25
Dani Olmo	1998-05-07	179	Midfield	Spain	26
Frenkie de Jong	1997-05-12	181	Midfield	Netherlands	27
Ferran Torres	2000-02-29	184	Attack	Spain	24
Jules Koundé	1998-11-12	180	Defender	France	25
Eric García	2001-01-09	182	Defender	Spain	23
Ansu Fati	2002-10-31	178	Attack	Spain	21
Ronald Araujo	1999-03-07	192	Defender	Uruguay	25
Alejandro Balde	2003-10-18	175	Defender	Spain	20
Marc Casadó	2003-09-14	172	Midfield	Spain	21
Fermín López	2003-05-11	174	Midfield	Spain	21
Gerard Martín	2002-02-26	186	Defender	Spain	22
Pau Víctor	2001-11-26	184	Attack	Spain	22
Pablo Torre	2003-04-03	173	Midfield	Spain	21
Héctor Fort	2006-08-02	185	Defender	Spain	18
Pau Cubarsí	2007-01-22	184	Defender	Spain	17
Marc Bernal	2007-05-26	191	Midfield	Spain	17

Table.1 FC Barcelona Player Season 2023-2024

La Masia

FC Barcelona’s success is contributed by it’s youth football academy called La Masia (The Farmhouse). It is considered as the best youth system in world football. It can be seen in the figure below that the majority of FC Barcelona players from Spain.

library(ggplot2)
subset |> ggplot(mapping=aes(x=Positions,fill=Nationality))+
  geom_bar()

Figure 1. FC Barcelona Player Based on Nationality and Positions

This is further shown in the figure below where for every position (except Goalkeeper) FC Barcelona has a young player (age below 25) coming from La Masia.

subset |> ggplot(aes(x=Age, 
                     fill=Nationality))+
  geom_histogram(binwidth = 1.5)+
  scale_fill_manual(values=c("#a50044","#004d98","#edbb00","#ffed02","#db0030","#157b6d","#456789"))+
  facet_wrap(vars(Positions))

Figure 2. FC Barcelona Player Based on Age, Nationality and Positions

The success of FC Barcelona in the footballing world shows the importance of developing young talent through club academy. This not only beneficial for the club but also the player.