Revival of La Masia: how the Barcelona academy is again churning out world-class stars
Description: After several years of stagnation, Barcelona’s legendary talent forge, La Masia, is back in full force. Let’s look at how the Catalan club managed to revive its academy and what role Ronald Koeman and Xavi played in this.URL: vozrozhdenie-la-masii
The revival of La Masia: how the Barcelona academy is again churning out world-class stars
This season, Barcelona will not be able to repeat last year’s success and win trophies, but Blaugrana fans have good reason for optimism. The club’s legendary La Masia academy, which has been in decline in recent years, is back at full capacity. Barça’s young players are increasingly shining in the first team, and talents such as Lamin Yamal and Fermin Lopez are already being called future superstars. Let’s figure out how the Catalans managed to revive their talent pool and which coaches played a key role in this.
From Guardiola to Bartomeu: the rise and fall of La Masia
La Masia flourished during the tenure of Pep Guardiola. Arriving at Barça in 2008, he already found many talented players on the team – Messi, Puyol, Iniesta, Xavi, Valdez. Pep continued this line, bringing in Busquets, Pedro and buying Pique from Manchester United. By 2009, the backbone of Barcelona and the Spanish national team was made up of academy graduates, as the 1win-azerbaycan.com website very often referred to.But under President Josep Bartomeu (2014-2020), the situation has changed. He relied on expensive transfers like Dembele, Coutinho and Griezmann, which did not always pay off. But work with young people has faded into the background. As a result, La Masia stopped producing top-level players, and the symbol of the Messi era was forced to leave for PSG due to financial problems.
Koeman, Xavi and the new blossoming of the academy
The revival of La Masia began with the arrival of Ronald Koeman in 2020. Being a Barça legend, he was not afraid to play youngsters Ansu Fati, Pedri and Gavi. Yes, Koeman himself was quickly fired due to disagreements with the returning President Laporta. But the vector he set for trust in his students was preserved.