To often we see a lack of fairplay in games these days and with the pro’s very rarely doing the right thing and a lot cheating at any opportunity its great to hear of stories of great sportsmanship. Kids at all levels should be taught fairplay and proper sportsmanship, it is something that is lacking in the game today. In Barcelona this week, an example of fairplay was shown by an FCB Youth Team.

Youth team fair play gesture

Fair play is one of the key elements which the Barcelona tries to teach its young footballers coming up through the academy system and the Youth B team again showed how the youngsters understand those values in their game against Castelldefels.

In an incident that echoed the gesture the Alevi B team made in 2007, this time it was the Youth B team trained by Sergi Barjuan, who demonstrated that the values of fair play and good sportsmanship are above any sporting success at the Club, as the academy system continues to train and educate not just good footballers, but also good people.

Two points lost, but a valuable lesson learnt

Sergi’s young players came into the 28th week eight points ahead of Espanyol at the top of their league and were looking for a win on Saturday at Castelldefels to take them a little closer to the title. With the game coming to an end and still goalless, Barça’s , Carlos Julio Martínez fired home without realising that the hosts’ keeper was lying injured on the ground. The goal was given as valid, but under instructions from their coach the Youth B team allowed Castelldefels through to score a goal themselves to make up for it.

That was a gesture that lost the team two points and with Espanyol winning allowed their rivals to close in on them, but the bigger lesson learned by the youngsters was once again that fair play is more important that just winning for its own sake.

Echoes of 2007 incident

The gesture was widely covered in the Spanish media since it is unfortunately not often that good sportsmanship outdoes the desire to win in Spain’s number one sport, but this is not the first time a Barça team have shown such an attitude in recent years. In 2007 the Aleví B team, then trained by the current Coordinator of youth football Albert Puig, caught the media’s attention with a similar action. During the game against Espanyol, Barça’s opponents kicked the ball out so that a player could receive treatment, but they didn’t give possession back from the resulting free kick and indeed went on to score. Puig then insisted that his charges allow Espanyol through to score in reply.

That was just one more lesson for the youngsters, and a typical example of how the youth system aims to create not just great players like Messi, Iniesta or Xavi, but also players with the same fair minded attitude.

Research: FCB Site