Superstar seedling farm
La Masia was born based on the idea of legend Johan Cruyff of a "Catalan version of Ajax". After 45 years of construction and development, La Masia training center is considered the world's number 1 standard. This is an important foundation for the pinnacle of achievements that the Catalan giants have built over the years.
Top-class superstars such as Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Alba, Puyol... have achieved success in both national and Barca. La Masia also provided many stars for many big clubs in Europe such as the cases of Arsenal's Fabregas, Man United's Pique (later all returned to play for Barca).
In addition, Barcelona also produced top coaches, most notably Pep Guardiola - who created the most prosperous period of La Masia in the period of 2009 - 2015, with almost absolute dominance in La Liga and 2 Champions League titles in 2009 and 2011.
La Masia's pride was in the match between Barca and Levante in November 2012, when 11 players on the pitch (including goalkeepers) were all "homegrown" products. The brilliant peak of La Masia's training is Lionel Messi.
Thanks to the core force from La Masia in the national team, the team from the land of cow disease has won a great hat-trick: 2 EURO and 1 World Cup, dominating absolutely from 2008 to 2012.
Notably, in the 2010 World Cup final, there were 7 Barcelona players, 6 of whom came from La Masia. The assists and goals to bring Spain to the top of the world were all done by players trained by La Masia itself.
La Masia is reviving
From 2014 to 2020, Barca made serious mistakes when changing the way players were used. They no longer value "home and garden" but spend a lot of money to buy a star, causing the role and influence of La Masia players to enter a period of decline.
Until Xavi returned and became a coach, he boldly trusted the "family" such as Pedri, Gavi, Fati, Araujo... to help Barcelona gradually "recover their identity".
The latest, most special, was Yamal's brilliant performance at EURO 2024, reminiscing many people about the legends of La Masia before. Despite his young age, Yamal has proven his ability by scoring a super goal and leading the list of assists.
Some other La Masia players such as Xavi Simons (Netherlands) are leading the list of assists with Yamal, or Dani Olmo has 3 goals and 2 assists.
The La Masia players, regardless of their country, play with the Barcelona spirit and identity, creating many good impressions in the hearts of the audience.
The image of La Masia is gradually recovering with the implementation of self-training philosophy, instead of spending a few hours recruiting outside players.
If Real Madrid is actively building Galaticos 3.0, Barcelona is also creating La Masia 2.0 with many star players, to add more colors in each super classic match.
