 It's Ricky Pooj. He's going to LA Galaxy. Can you tell us more about this? It has come as a surprise to some. He was one of the most exciting prospects of Lamassia a few years ago. But he's one of the biggest disappointments in this last year. It had been years since the likes of Tiago, Cesc Fabregas, Iniesta, Busquets, and Chavi had broken through and represented the midfield greatness that Lamassia could create. Ricky's abilities on the pitch brought back the itch of nostalgia for so many Kulays. And, man, I can't blame them for that. Born in Barcelona, Ricardo Pooj, Marti, or Ricky for short, joined Lamassia at 13 years old and rose healthily through the ranks before making his debut for the first team on December 5th, 2018. From that point on, you could hear Pooj's names being shouted from the Raptors at the Camp Nou pretty much every match. That team was severely struggling under Kike Setian, playing incredibly narrow football and just hoping that the likes of Lionel Messi or Ansu Fati could somehow save them and create some greatness and win matches that way. And many times that did work, but fans were still left asking for more, something that they believed Ricky could offer the squad. He was slight, agile, and fantastic on the ball, pretty much everything that we've become accustomed to a good Lamassia talent having. On paper, or at least in the minds of us fans, Ricky could be the difference maker for this team. In the few cameos he made, he was exciting and looked to make things happen. He connected the deep midfield of Raketich and Busquets to the difference makers in the attack, Messi and Suarez. Ricky made quick decisions incredibly well and was about as press resistant of a player as you possibly could have been. During this time, Sess Fabregas came out praising Pooj saying, Ricky can become like Iniesta if coaches trust him. I'm sure he has what it takes to succeed. He just has to have the right attitude and keep improving. However, despite the high praise, he wasn't a perfect player. Kuman criticized him, though indirectly for not working hard enough to improve, to do what Sess said he needed to do. There were also times where the team opened the door for Ricky to leave because he wasn't getting the playing time to gain experience and game time somewhere else where he could make that improvement, but Ricky choose not to. He might've believed that one day he could make it at Barcelona or maybe he just didn't wanna leave his hometown. Either way, he tried to stay and make it happen, but it would never happen for him. See, Ricky, for all the excitement he brought onto the pitch, he was pretty poor off of the ball, both in possession and out of it. His spatial awareness was not at the highest level, often occupying the same space as a teammate or not rotating correctly, and he really struggled to press in any sort of effective way at all. Pooj wasn't necessarily lazy. He tried to press, but he just wasn't good at it at all. And on top of that, versatility wasn't exactly his best trait either. He could really only play one position and that's really not acceptable in today's football. He wanted to play that left interior midfielder in a 4-3-3 or the top of the midfield in a 4-4-2 diamond. That might be okay under some coaches and in some teams if they wanna build around you, but that was never gonna happen for Pooj at Barcelona, especially when they had Lionel Messi. Looking at the young midfielders that have been successful at Barcelona recently, one of the most obvious traits of theirs is their versatility. In the past two years, Gavi has been asked to play as a winger, interior, and at the base of a double pivot, among other positions that I'm sure I'm forgetting. And Pedri is a very similar story. When Chavi came into the squad, his strict positional play needed some versatility from his midfielders, which is why we saw the likes of Pedri and Gavi thrive under him, but the likes of Pooj were forgotten. At this point, it was clear he had to leave Barcelona. Now 22 years old, he either had to get some playing time or his career might have been over. However, instead of going to a lower table Spanish or English club or even a weaker league team like Pais Bay or Benfica, where he could still play Champions League football, he chose to go to the LA Galaxy. That's a very interesting move to say the least. The LA Galaxy is not a good team, doesn't have an interesting project like Inter Miami, and more importantly than anything else, is as far away from European football as it could possibly get. Pooj very easily could have followed in the footsteps of Carlos Alenya and Denis Suarez to lower table sides in La Liga where they could try to prove themselves before, hopefully making a move to a bigger club eventually. But Ricky chose something else, something different. Not to say that one is better than the other, but maybe Pooj just thrived in the spotlight. He loved the attention he got at Barcelona and wanted to get something similar elsewhere. So he went to LA where he could be the guy. When he made the move, I knew the American fans would love him, not only because he was coming from one of the most famous clubs in the world, but because he is a fun and exciting player to watch. He's also a good looking and charismatic guy, someone who could be the face of a franchise here in the United States. And that is exactly what the club tried to do. Just look at the Inter Miami versus LA Galaxy game from a few weeks ago. The headline is Leonel Messi versus Ricky Pooch. In what world would we have ever seen that in Europe? That would have never happened if he went to play for the likes of Hitafe and they faced PSG and some weird friendly. I don't care how well he would have played for Hitafe, his name probably would have been forgotten a little bit and not held at the highest of heights like it is in this match. But in the MLS where they are starved of the very best talent, Ricky Pooch can be that number one guy. However, that doesn't come without trade-offs. Pooch could become like Iniesta one day if he improved. And with the LA Galaxy, he has definitely improved. His final ball is much better. He is a much more progressive passer and is quite a decent finisher as well. But all of this improvement doesn't really matter because I don't think it will be taken seriously by a top European side. It's not like he's Zlatan who already proved himself. Ricky failed in Europe and then he left. I'm not optimistic about the door still being open should he want to move back in the future. He has also not at all improved defensively and a lot of that has to do with the fact that the LA Galaxy don't really give him the responsibility to defend. They were able to build that LA Galaxy team around him, allowing him to really excel at the good things but not have to improve his overall game completely. Because the LA Galaxy weren't a great team and didn't have a ton of prospects when he came, Ricky was basically given the keys to the castle. So I imagine he can play whatever position he wants. He even takes pens for the side and I'm gonna be honest, I've watched a bunch of them. I don't think he's great at taking pens. But nevertheless, all this creating a team around Ricky is gonna be another barrier to his entry back into Europe because no top side is gonna build the team around Ricky Pooch anymore. Maybe you could argue that his attacking abilities could slide in for a role similar to Odegard's at Arsenal or even maybe KDB's at City but his defensive frailties remain and would keep him out of those sides. In that Inter-Miami match, he was walking alongside Messi for like half of the match. That is unacceptable in top level football unless you are the guy. And that's okay because he is good even though the LA Galaxy isn't great with him in the squad but no top side is gonna ever do that to him and I don't think he's gonna ever want to go to a team where he doesn't have that. I think he probably likes being this idolized public figure. He had it when he was a kid at Barcelona and now he has it in the MLS and should for the next several years if he stays. With his attacking intelligence only getting better and him still only being 24, he has several years ahead of him to be great but I firmly believe that if he stayed in Europe he could have one day played for a pretty solid European side if that's what he had wanted to do and that probably wasn't and it may never be. That makes a little bit of sense too because it's hard to build around a player to find the perfect formula of players and tactics to make that work and sometimes that's okay if you have Lionel Messi being that guy but that's not Ricky Pooch or at least it's not him yet. Now I don't want you to think I'm saying he made the wrong choice. He just made a unique one. Players in Europe very rarely do something like this. We saw with Oscar going to China to make that bag almost immediately in his prime but I think it's being in the spotlight. I think that's what he likes and you know it's hard to speculate exactly on his emotions and his feelings but I think it's telling that he chose to go to the MLS immediately and I think there is a big reason for that and I don't necessarily think it was a sporting one. I think he likes the profile that he has and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just different from what we're used to and I could imagine for a lot of Coulets it's upsetting because we wanted to see him break through at Barcelona but he didn't prove to be that guy or have the ability to pick up that game quick enough. He might have been able to do that if he went to a lower table La Liga side or even went to the Premier League but I don't think that path is in front of him anymore. Now big shout out to the Pierce football. He wrote an article a few years about what happens to Ricky Pooch at Barcelona and I would not have been able to understand so much about him tactically if it weren't for his article. But if you enjoyed this video go check out this one about the hunt for the new face of FC Barcelona. It goes through a wild history of Barcelona trying to find the formula to create the next messy and all their failures leading up to the guy we have now. But thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.