I've spent several weeks reading and hearing that Barcelona's academy is not what it once was. That is is a disater. That it doesn't work. I respect all opinions, of course, but I also have my own and I would like to explain it.

Josep Capdevila

The first impression I have is that the academy is being used to crisicise the club's current board. If you follow me, you will know that I also am very critical of the board. My opinion is that their management of the club has not been very good. But it seems unfair to use the academy as a weapon.

It is nearly one year since Guillermo Amor and Albert Puig suddenly left the club and I firmly believed that was an error and it was unjust at the time. And I still think that. But now Jordi Roura and Aureli Altimira are in place and I don't think it's fair to go after them, either.

Last season, with 13 out of a possible 14 titles, excellence was achieved. This season, even with Amor and Puig, it was always going to be difficult to repeat that success. Roura and Altimira have kept all the same managers in place and not one of the signings was made by them.

All of the incomings were already sorted by Amor and Puig. They worked with a plan to have everything done and all of the squads full for the following season, or at least 90 percent completed, by March or April. So this season we have in place the managers and players of two men who demonstrated their value to Barcelona's academy.

Roura and Altimira are accused of not knowing the academy. It is true that until this season they were both part of the first team structure. And it is true that neither worked with the academy before. But, for example, Altimira has a son and a nephew who have been in the academy at the club for several years. So the fact that he's had that proximity to the club's academy, you'd suppose, will have allowed him to follow the academy's progress and know about its state.

Another impression I have is that when people speak about the academy in general they include Barça B and Juvenil A. That is their right. But they actually form part of the club's professional structure, not the academy. None of Amor, Puig or Altimira has anything to do with it, while Roura does have more responsibilities, but only over recent months.

The planning for Barça B and Juvenil A was the job of Andoni Zubizarreta and his team. They are responsible, for example, for the fact there are nine midfielders in Juvenil A and not one striker. And they should be asked why in their four years in charge not one player signed for Barça B has made it into the first team. That, yes, is a failure.

The success of an academy, at Barça or any other club, shouldn't be measured on titles won. Of course, that is a good thing, but success should be measured by the players that year on year progress, until eventually making the first team. That is the real triumph.

And so I am going to give a list of players from Infantil B up to Juvenil B that, as of today, have the ability to make it to the first team, or at least as professional football players (and I advise you that I have had to leave several players out):

Juvenil B: Marc Cucurella, Carles Aleñà, Oriol Busquets, Dani Morer and Carles Pérez. Cadete A: Iñaki Peña, Alex Collado, Riqui Puig, Jordi M’Boula and Abel Ruiz. Cadete B: Mamadou Touré, Sergio Gómez, Pau Martínez and Imad el Kabbou. Infantil A: Eric García, Adrián Bernabé, Anssumane Fati and Nils Mortimer. Infantil B: Robert Navarro, Marc Domènech, Pablo Moreno and Moriba Kouoruma.

Save these names and in a few years we'll talk about them.

Will they all make it? Probably not. But the majority should do. Football is unpredictable. When Sergio Busquets and Pedro were in Barça B, nobody bet on them to make it to where they are today. On the other hand, many people had bet on Gai Assulin.

The success of the academy is also the formation of the players. On Saturday, Barça's Alevin A and B side lost the final of the MIC Tournament against Real Madrid. The coaches, Marc Serra and Jordi Font, took more than 20 players to the competition. And even in the final they prioritised playing everyone rather than going all out for the win.

Last year, Real Madrid Alevin played a competition in Peru and their second goalkeeper did not play a single minute. Sporting success should come second to player formation.

And one final consideration: Be careful when criticising the academy of Barcelona or any other club. Because when we are doing so we are talking of many young children and teenagers that have no part to play in the multiple wars which fill football clubs -- especially in Barcelona's case.

Barça's academy is not perfect, of course it isn't. As is the case across life, there are many things which can be improved. There are managers and players working towards doing that, but let's not use the academy as another stick to beat the board with. Unfortunately, there are many other things you can use to do that.