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Will he or won't he? The question's plagued Arsenal fans for the last two years. Sometimes, he seems a lock to stay in London. Others, a lock to return to Barcelona. If you find this all a bit taxing, imagine how Cesc Fabregas feels.
After winning the World Cup alongside Barcelona stars Iniesta, Xavi, Puyol, Pique, Valdez, and Pedro, the Cesc Fabregas Dilemma has to be reaching a fever pitch. Clearly,
Barcelona players want him to come home, and new Barca president Sandro Rosell said last week, "
The whole world knows he wants to come and that we want to sign him."
"Will he or won't he?" is fun to discuss, but the more challenging (and less exasperating) question is "should he or shouldn't he?" Based on the information we have, what is the right personal choice for Cesc Fabregras?
Fabregas was born a Catalonian. He "attended" his first Barca game
at 9 months old. He worshiped Pep Guardiola and moved into a dormitory with the Barca youth squad
at age 14, where he played alongside Leo Messi and developed a powerful connection with him on the pitch. Sounds like a lifelong dream of his to be part of Barcelona, right?
Not so fast. Fabregas
said of this time:
It was great to play for Barcelona, but when we played it was 30-0. What’s the point? I need to have competition. From when I was in the under-13s we started winning by 15 goals and I was thinking about leaving. If the coaches can see you’re better than the opposition, why don’t they let you play against a higher age group?
Some people tell the story of Fabregas as though he was reluctantly plucked from Barcelona, or somehow abandoned by them and salvaged by Arsenal. But the truth is that, despite captaining their U-16s, he was looking to leave. According to Cesc, he almost went to rival Espanyol, a curious choice for someone who supposedly bleeds their stripey colors, but he was talked into staying... until Arsenal called:
I stayed [after considering Espanyol] but then Arsenal came and I knew it was the chance of a lifetime.
The first time I came to London I saw the facilities. I talked to the boss, they treated me as if I was an adult, a big player. I had the feeling something special could happen for me here.
Arsenal delivered Cesc 1st team football as a 16 year old (albeit in Cup matches) in 03-04, a chance to play in the Champs final the following season, and the #4 shirt and a starting place in every league game in 05-06. Now, he's the squad captain and talisman for the team. He's Arsenal's version of Barcelona's Xavi Hernandez (the only player on earth who could/does displace Cesc as a starting playmaker).
This mini bio tells us a few things:
1) The loyalty factor is overrated. It was Cesc who chose to leave Barcelona, and he was so bored of dominating with their youth squad that he almost left for a hated rival. If he chooses to return there, it'll probably have much less to do with childhood loyalty than the media will make it seem. That's a good thing, by the way -- making major life decisions based on over-romanticizing your childhood can often lead to disappointment.
2) Fabregas values a challenge and a starring role as much as winning trophies. What offensive-minded player complains about winning 15-0? This one, apparently. He was bored with the lack of competition against Barca youth and also wanted first-team football badly.
Today, some of the details have changed, but the choice between Arsenal and Barcelona still features many of the same dimensions.
In 08-09, Barca pulled off the treble, and last year they won La Liga with a record-high points total. Winning will come (relatively) easily with one of the best club sides in a generation. But to go there means sitting behind Xavi and Iniesta in the biggest matches, unless he somehow displaces Pedro (a rising star in his own right) elsewhere on the pitch. At the very least, he will be placed in a more regular rotation with other starters and won't run with the starting XI for every game right away.
Arsenal offers him *his* team, a squad built around his talents which he captains. Obviously, Arsenal's no Espanyol, either -- they're a top 10 team in terms of income and world fan base, and they're probably the most financially stable elite club on the planet. Sure, they won't be favorites in the Champions League like Barcelona, but they'll be in the title mix in the EPL every year, especially with Manchester United and Chelsea aging. They've suffered 5 trophy-less seasons, including a Champs loss to Barca last year (and the Champs final loss to them in '05), so if Arsenal brings home silverware this year or next, it'll be a huge accomplishment. And the odds are extremely high that it'd have everything to do with Cesc Fabregas.
Based on what motivated him as a teenager, the choice is clear -- he should stay at Arsenal. He captains a top-10 club that presents a greater trophy challenge than Barcelona, where he'd be more likely to win but less likely to be the main reason.
However, it's possible his priorities have changed. Maybe winning is now the most important thing to Cesc Fabregas. He's tasted international glory with Spain in 2008 and 2010 as a part-time player and still managed to make his mark. He found Iniesta for the World Cup winning goal -- surely he could have the same sort of impact at Barcelona immediately with the promise of a greater role in coming seasons.
But f*** that. I say this as a Liverpool fan: choosing Barca over Arsenal is a LeBron-James-level copout. Cesc can pal around with his friends in Spain when he retires, which will arrive more quickly than he thinks. Very few people are handed the responsibility of shaping a good team into a championship team, and even fewer are capable of it. Fabregas has shown he might be one of those people, and the next 5 years of his life will define his entire legacy. He shouldn't spend them abdicating leadership so he can be just one of many names people remember as part of this great Barcelona team. And given that he's already missed out on 2 historic seasons, who's to say he'll ever rise into the top handful of players we associate with Barca's era of dominance?
Whatever Arsenal accomplishes will be due much more to Fabregas than anything Barcelona achieves. And when you have no idea how high your ceiling is, you ought to push yourself as hard as you can to see if you can find it. Maybe Cesc will learn that he's not one of the best players in the world or one of the best leaders in the world. Or maybe he'll win the Premier League as a 24 or 25 year old captain and feel a sense of personal accomplishment unlike anything Barca can offer.
Fabregas won't win nearly as much if he stays at Arsenal. In fact, he might not win anything. But my life experience tells me that people feel better when give everything they've got in the highest-pressure situations they can handle. Even if they come up short, they feel a satisfaction of pushing themselves to the limit that merely being good in a great situation never delivers. I think Fabregas understands this at some level, and that's why he chose to leave Barcelona's youth team in the first place. He wanted to see what he was really made of, and there's no reason to change course now.
Forget fans -- players owe them full effort on the pitch (and arguably not being a total embarrassment off it), but after 7 years of service from a player like Fabregas, he shouldn't have to subjugate his personal goals to fans who will stab you in the back the minute you struggle (see: Torres, Fernando).
Forget loyalty, childhood or otherwise -- neither Cesc nor Barcelona owe each other anything. Ditto Arsenal, by the way; he's done his job very well for a long time and has earned the right to make his own decisions.
Forget friends -- he'll have the rest of his life to run around with them (not to mention the national team matches).
This all comes down to legacy, the chance at true greatness. Fabregas can only learn who he truly is and how much he can actually accomplish in an Arsenal shirt, and that's worth more than a shelf of trophies that you know your team could've won without you.
There are two reasons I'd legitimately accept for Fabregas leaving: 1) the loyalty factor, which we've already shown is not his thing, and 2) the physicality of the Premier League. Fabregas has struggled to stay healthy lately, and if he feels like the EPL delivers unreasonable physical abuse, I can understand why he'd leave. The typical English/American fan might see that as a masculine failure, but going somewhere you won't be stomped on for 90 minutes every week and see that called a defensive "strategy" would be appealing to any of us in his place. So if he plays that card after a move, I can accept it. Other than that, though, Cesc Fabregas ought to remain with
his club.
Unless he wants to be the new LeBron.
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Posted by
Marc on 02:52 PM •
Permalink
A lot of fuss has been made over the waay Manchester United and Real Madrid have tapped up players in recent seasons but I don’t recall either the people running the club or in particular the players behaving in the transparently classless way Barcelona have over the last year or so, particularly when it was clear they thought they’d be able to use Fabregas’ ‘loyalty’ to pressure Arsenal into lowering their valuation. Pique and Puyol’s behaviour the other evening is just another example of that.
As for Fabregas, I think everyone expects him to move to Barca at some point but he’s only just turned 23, there’ll be plenty of time for that in the future. Also, considering how packed the Barca midfield and attack currently is, I can see Fabregas hypothetically needing to accomodate Iniesta and Xavi in his positioning, and that’s before you get on to Busquets, Pedro, Alves, Bojan, etc. I just ddon’t see the team shifting around to his liking until Xavi retires, whereas at Arsenal they build the team around him.
Man, I’ve been thinking about the same thing for weeks! Personally, I think it’ll be a bigger challenge for Fabregas to break into the Barca squad, then to stay at Arsenal, get kicked for 90 minutes over 38+ games, and win nothing. It seems to me that maybe leaving Barcelona for Arsenal was a cop-out. From what I remember, at the time he left, pretty much everyone was saying it was because he was surplus to requirements at Barca but could play first team football at Arsenal. He was probably looking around at the Barcelona first team and at the quality of the players coming up alongside him and not seeing an easy way to break in; then in come Arsenal and offer guaranteed fist team football with pretty much no competition for his spot. So what’s a bigger challenge for a 16-year old kid - stay at Barca and try to either fit in alongside Xavi and Iniesta or dislodge Xavi from the team or go play at Arsenal (where, as a 16-year old there will be no pressure and no huge expectations)? Sure, he was bored playing for the dominant Barca youth team. But the real reason he left, IMO, was that he didn’t see an easy way to break into the main squad.
So, like many other young continental players, e.g. Ronaldo, Torres, Robben, he took the opportunity to test himself out in the alleged “best league in the world.” And I’m sure the Prem is a good training ground, as it lets continental players add physicality and endurance to the technical skills they learned at home. But sooner or later, all of these guys want to go home (or, really, to Spain). Fabregas sees himself as a player who is good enough to play for the elite clubs. I don’t buy the “loyalty” storyline any more than you do, but it does offer him a diplomatic way out of his contract. And, really, where else is he going to go? He can’t go to ManU or Chelsea. And I don’t think he would want to, even if he didn’t care about the shitstorm that would undoubtedly ensue. And he definitely can not go to Real. So, Barca seems like a natural choice - their style of play suits him and there’s the built-in emotional appeal that makes for a good story.
To me, the real question is, do Barca need Fabregas? Xavi is only 30, and he is a player who doesn’t depend on stamina or speed for his game. Giggs lost his speed, but because of his intelligence and vision was able to adjust his game and go into his late thirties. Xavi wouldn’t even need to adjust much and, like Giggs, could stay at the top level for at least another 4-6 years. So I can see that Barcelona would want Fabregas as an eventual successor to Xavi, but they don’t need him right now. I don’t think they really want to buy him this year. Remember how Real started working on their move for Ronaldo the year before they actually made the bid and got him? It gave SAF an opportunity to save face with his “wouldn’t sell that lot a virus” tirade and it let the fans adjust to the idea that he was going. I think Barca are working the same game plan here.
But, as far as Fabregas, there are a ton of reasons to go:
- bigger challenge: breaking into the Barca team, shaping the squad, maintaining their legacy
- being part of a truly legendary club
- not getting kicked non-stop and thus prolonging his career
- better chance of establishing himself as a starter in the national team
- “winning things,” the great footballer justification for everything
- going home to a better climate and a better lifestyle than England offers
- money; it’s no secret that the high tax rates in England and the better image rights offered by Real were a significant reason for Ronaldo going
But I think he’ll give it one more shot at Arse and will go next year. Well, here’s my dissertation on the Fabregas saga. Can you tell I really thought about it? 
I think after the incident pictured there is no way he is going, he seemed really uncomfortable. Barca and its players are really getting on my nerves with this whole thing, they wan’t let it drop. “Everyone in the world knows he wants to come here.” They’re like Republicans with this constant repetition of talking points. Wenger says he’s not for sale: “Everyone in the world knows he wants to come here.” Arsenal reject the Barcelona offer: “Everyone in the world knows he wants to come here.” Fabregas himself says he loves Arsenal and the first thought in his head after the game was to console Van Persie: “Everyone in the world knows he wants to come here.” Barcelona is a great team, I wish they would just shut up.
@sancerre2001—outstanding point. Maybe the title runs they’ve been on have left Barca’s players feeling way too entitled to just impose reality kinda like Republicans do. Funny how entitlement does that to a person, innit?
@elena—great post! My only argument is with the claim that Barca is a bigger challenge. I think winning an EPL title with Arsenal is a much bigger challenge. It’s been five years since they’ve won anything, and to be the top guy on a team that wins a major league is a rare and amazing accomplishment. Just as importantly, it’s something over which Cesc has much more control. Pep Guardiola might continue to keep Fabregas behind Xavi/Iniesta/etc no matter how good he is—it’s one guy’s decision and the player is relatively powerless. At least Cesc has the chance to more directly control Arsenal’s performance through his own play and leadership. He’s far from being able to control their destiny entirely on his own, but he’s not at the whims of one other person, either.
Marc, it’s not like Real are any better - now Casillas opened his face to opine on Ashley Cole going to Real! At least Prem players don’t usually take part in the “tapping-up” of their fellow players by their clubs. I know the Barca players were probably on a 24-hour sleepless bender before the shirt incident, but still. Why would they think that was a good idea?
I can totally see your point re: the challenge at Arsenal, though I still disagree. Cesc seems like a guy who would go for what he feels is a bigger challenge, so I guess we’ll find out what that means to him. Has Guardiola said anything about this? I know managers in La Liga don’t have the same control over transfers as Prem managers, but I think his silence is telling. I wonder if he even has a say, or will the president make the signings and he’ll deal the best he can? That’s certainly the case at Real, which really makes me wonder how Mourinho will deal with that kind of loss of control? And by the way, with the emergency loan Barca just had to take out to pay salaries, how on earth could they even be thinking of forking out an astronomical fee for a player they really don’t need?
Ah, and here it is, from the Guardian: Barcelona’s finances look to be in a sorry state. So what are they thinking? They simply can’t afford him.
Marc, Elena: as an Arsenal fan who’s been following the Cesc saga this summer, great job on summarizing the key points in the matter. I was not aware that he had considered Espanyol earlier in his career.
I’m resigned to the fact that Cesc will not play his entire career in an Arsenal shirt; that it’s only a matter of time before he goes to Barca. It was clear in last year’s Champions League matchup that Arsenal is several players away from legitimately competing with the big European clubs. Wenger acknowledged as much after the game but continues to show a steadfast belief in the current group of players that he has brought along in the last five trophy-less seasons (Diaby, Denilson, Bendtner, Walcott, Sagna, Clichy, Van Persie with Cesc at the helm). He has made two of the four moves needed this offseason to legitimately compete for English and (maybe) European success with Chamakh and Koscielny but there are still two glaring holes in the spine of the club. All of this is to say that while Arsenal have given Cesc a lot (meaningful playing time at an early age, captaincy, face of the franchise, etc.), they have failed to give him the supporting cast needed to achieve success. My guess is that there are two years left for Wenger to show that his commitment to the current Arsenal crew is warranted. Should Cesc want to stick around, have faith that Wenger knows what he’s doing, and be the centerpiece for this run, he can go down as an Arsenal hero. It will be several years before he can be the centerpiece for Barca (and even that’s not assured). No one can fault him for leaving immediately for the spoils of Barcelona but Marc’s comparison to the LeBron situation is accurate: he can stay put and be the man to bring much-needed trophies back to London or go be one of the guys with his friends in Spain while racking up titles that won’t be considered “his”. My Arsenal-skewed take is that he will stay in London and go for the glory, all the while knowing that if doesn’t work out, Barca will always be there for him.
Faizan - yes, but I have to point out that while it’s true that Arsenal did not give
Fabregas a great supporting cast, they can at least pay his wages without taking out a loan! I might not be a fan of Arsenal, but at least Wenger won’t let the Liverpool, ManU, or Barca situation happen there. I do think that he’ll eventually cave in and buy a more established star with experience, but he’ll probably make a smart deal.
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A lot of fuss has been made over the waay Manchester United and Real Madrid have tapped up players in recent seasons but I don’t recall either the people running the club or in particular the players behaving in the transparently classless way Barcelona have over the last year or so, particularly when it was clear they thought they’d be able to use Fabregas’ ‘loyalty’ to pressure Arsenal into lowering their valuation. Pique and Puyol’s behaviour the other evening is just another example of that.
As for Fabregas, I think everyone expects him to move to Barca at some point but he’s only just turned 23, there’ll be plenty of time for that in the future. Also, considering how packed the Barca midfield and attack currently is, I can see Fabregas hypothetically needing to accomodate Iniesta and Xavi in his positioning, and that’s before you get on to Busquets, Pedro, Alves, Bojan, etc. I just ddon’t see the team shifting around to his liking until Xavi retires, whereas at Arsenal they build the team around him.