On the day Joan Laporta took a photo with the teams that made up Barcelona’s youth football team for the 2021-2022 season, he started watching a children’s rondo led by technical secretary Ramon Planes (2018-2021). “Take a good look at this player,” Planes remembers pointing it out to him. “It’s called Lamine Yamal and it’s going to be a phenomenon. “He has talent, mentality, football intelligence,” he concluded with the complicity of the Barça president.
Yamal joined Barça at the age of seven, started at Porto at 16 and became the youngest goalscorer in the league at Granada at 16 years and 87 days. Balde and Gavi, who are 19 years old, arrived at the age of eight and 11 respectively, while Fermín, who turned 20, arrived at the age of 13. The four competed in Do Dragão and Los Cármenes. Sergi Roberto, author of the 2-2 result in Granada, and Oriol Romeu, linked to the youth team of Barcelona, as well as Araujo, who joined the reserve team in 2018 after being recruited by Planes, also a supporter of Pedri, also played.
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“The Barça club excels in recruiting,” argues Planes. “We are talking about the smallest players and 7-on-7 football,” emphasizes the current Betis sporting director. “An excellent raw material,” he sums up to the satisfaction of Jordi Roura, who also gave up responsibility for the youth teams at the start of Laporta’s second term in office. “Lamine has always surprised me,” he says. “He’s not wrong and his performances are devastating. “He is La Masia’s greatest talent.” “I also had no doubts about Fermín’s quality, but there was no opportunity for him to develop further. “Until recently,” adds Roura, equally happy with Gavi and Balde: “I didn’t pay attention to physical appearance when choosing a player. I was interested in the technique, the talent and whether they had something special.” And it reminds me of Xavi, Iniesta or Messi. “It would have been bad for us if size had been a deciding factor in selecting players moving from one category to another,” concludes Roura.
Gavi protests during the game in Granada.JON NAZCA (Portal)
“The goal is smart players who can handle the ball well, are quick and skillful, differ in details such as oriented control and master the space-time relationship, footballers who fit our style,” they explain in Oriol Tort Training Center. The theoretical corpus was compiled in the methodology area developed by specialists such as Joan Vilà, Paco Seirul·lo and Andoni Zubizarreta. Laporta wants to continue with Deco the thread he created with Begiristain. The starting point is clear: Cruyff. “Football is seen through the eyes of Cruyff,” proclaimed an anti-establishment like Romario.
Cruyff was introduced in 1988 with Milla as a midfielder and was released in 1996 after lighting up the Quinta de Lo Pelat. El Flaco ordered the different teams to play equally, a decision that shocked La Masia. The unification of the criteria was somewhat consistent with the professionalization proposal put forward by Laureano Ruíz and Michels in the 1970s.
Ajax eventually became the inspiration for the Dream Team and Cruyff later chose Guardiola. We shouldn’t forget Van Gaal’s death either. On November 25, 2015, the youth team had its big day: Tito Vilanova presented a line-up with 11 Barcelona youth football players against Levante.
The Ballon d’Or 2010
The peak was reached when Messi, Iniesta and Barça was founded in Vigo on April 17, 2018 without any youth players and from 2015 to 2018 34 foreign players moved to Barça B.
“What role should the reserve team have?” asks Jaume Marcet, one of the journalists who knows La Masia’s young players best, having broadcast their games on Barça television. Is it a link? he asks. “Some players move from the youth team to the first team,” a fact that does not go unnoticed by the cadets, who prefer to bet on a foreign team rather than Barça B. “Xavi also,” emphasizes Marcet, “completed some training sessions” in castings to fulfill the promises; There he discovered Fermín.”
Yamal and Balde, against Granada. Miguel Angel Molina (EFE)
Xavi was surprised when he returned in 2021: he did not recognize the game of Barça or La Masia. “We have to return to the lost model,” explained the coach, at one point comparing the regression that comes with betting on a more direct game, moving away from positional play and close to that of the Premier. “The prototype was Ilaix Moriba,” agree La Masia. Although the institutional instability has affected the training and commitment of the professional staff, the recruitment has continued to be effective “because the scouting services have become more professional and we have good programs and better technicians”, they insist on a Masia der which is pending today Guidelines from Deco and Alexanco, the head of grassroots football who was already with Laporta from 2005 to 2010.
“The young people are better prepared, they have improved in their development and mentality and they do not care about the category, the rival and the field on which they play,” says a coach who oversees the coordination work of Marc Serra and Sergi Mila admired. The key is to internalize La Masia’s music theory and “understand its function,” Planes concludes. An idea so strong that several coaches believe that many of the athletes trained at the Barça club only serve to play in the context or football environment of Barcelona. “The opposite of Madrid, which has an excellent base but prefers to export its promises,” warns the school.
It can also be debated whether Barça has been able to absorb all the talent produced if we look at the departures of Kubo, Olmo, Simons or Onana, not to mention Nico, Abde, Ansu or Eric García. The rise of the quarry depends on the courage of the coach and many circumstances, most of which are not easy for Xavi. Injuries plague the team and there is no money at the club at a time when Laporta needs wins and players to replace Montjuïc. However, the levers do not guarantee the titles, nor are eleven players like Lamine Yamal in the quarry.
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