La Masia: What Went Wrong at Barcelona's Academy?

La Masia: What went wrong at Barcelona's academy?

La Masia is not what it used to be. In 2012, Tito Vilanova played with 11 La Masia players for 60 minutes against Levante for the first time in history. In 2010, the world's top three players consisted of Messi, Iniesta and Xavi, according to the Ballon d’Or voting. All three were developed by the same school and idea: La Masia.`

Expecting that to always remain the case, for La Masia to keep producing at the rate of its 2000s peak, was always unrealistic. But today, the contrast to today is huge.

So what went wrong?

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#lamasia #barca #pepguardiola

[timothysoo]

Simple explanation, when a club or any company is at a peak for so long. They are more than likely to use all measures to maintain their peak even to the point of undermining what took them here in the first place. From a bigger picture, what we see Barcelona has been doing is no different from what big companies like Microsoft and Apple did to stay on top.

Edit: You can also see the United States doing similar things at a different level just to stay as the top superpower. they acquire so much debt, fight pointless wars, military spendings etc. It has already undermined the economic prosperity of many Americans.

[aryan.marahaj]

Barcelona are hiring the wrong manager's and board's vision is not on youngsters. The board wants success now but even that isn't working.

[matthewvenables]

I find it hard to believe that so many people think that La Masia is the best youth academy in the world, they hit the jackpot with there golden generation, just like many great teams have done through the history of football.
La Masia and Johan Cruyff developed their identity by copying Ajax and Rinus Michels tactics and training methods.(That is not a criticism)
The greatest youth setup belongs to Ajax, they have produced more elite footballers than any other club in the world and have done so for nearly 50 years.

[gavindavis]

I remember when Barcelona beat Real Madrid 5-0 in 2010, I don't know if there was a player that wasn't from La Masia that played (other than David Villa) and it was magical. Players like Issac Cuenca, Jeffren, Bojan and even Pedro at the time where all young players who were given game time in one of the most important games of the season. I don't know if they will ever go back to having as much faith in their youngsters as they used to. A real shame, I fear Barcelona will fade into mediocrity once Messi retires.

[coffeebreakatpm]

The board is beyond incompetent in every aspect. They hire bad managers/decision makers with no long term visions and are consistently saved by Messi. The day Messi retires/leaves this club will be in shambles.

[justdino]

Here after Gavi, Casado, Bernal, Balde, and most beautifully Cubarsi and Yamal.
La Masia will NEVER DIE!
Force Barca💙❤️

[derkg]

Barca have no idea what to do because they are so focused on Messi and his final years so they try to build around him

[iwantgoals]

Rakitic’s point about the first team being too good for any youth prospect to get in is spot on.

What frustrates me as a United fan is that most of our first team players clearly aren’t good enough to play for us and yet the youth still don’t get their chance. If we’d been blooding them in properly since the start of the season we’d probably have some consistency by now.

[asif]

New youngster is coming Pjanic is his name hope he is good

[atuFCB]

RiP... Yesterday barca lost again in an away game... Their worst start in 25 years

[oudoilleoville]

I saw an interview of Edwin van der Sar. He told that the game has changed and that they had to adapt to that in Ajax youth academy by teaching the players to play faster than previously.

[harrykang]

Best Football Content on Youtube, No doubt about it.

[Orzel]

I love watching this almost three years on with more and more La Masia players coming back or coming through into the first team which is the entire reason for the Barca resurgence this year

[LordEdmund]

This is why I don't mind the Chelsea transfer ban too much. We've had one of the regularly strongest youth teams in the world, with all this youth talent stored away and never used until eventually they left. That's why we don't have De Bruyne and Salah at the club. The transfer ban forces us to give them a go

[danaassaf]

It's so interesting to see that now, 4 years after the video, Xavi gave the confidence and trust needed to the youth players and we are witnessing the rebirth of la Masia with talents like Gavi, Balde, Yammal, Fermin and Cubarsi

[behzadmastoor]

-Iniesta “ The problem is to give them hope and confidence”
-Pique “Youth players choose money over sports project”
-Xavi “ Nowadays the youth players are very impatient and demand to be given chances”

The problem is not just the Hierarchy but the whole system, while Bartomeu kicked every staff of La Masia, and has stated that he will leave in 2020, it will still not solve the problems. Currently the manager is struggling to work with the first team and is not getting the result let alone “a good performance”, and some of the fans as well are very impatient and demand a good result due to Real Madrid’s recent success in UCL, even though Barca has been winning the league consecutively. I believe it’s a cycle of struggle that every successful teams face such as Man United, Arsenal, Milan, And Real Madrid, and the fans should be patience and not forget that the important factor in Barcelona’s success had been good performance.

[jesuscoronado]

4:16 this exactly the problem, Barca doesn’t even try now. Thank you for exposing this, great in depth video.

[zephergaming]

Barcelona fans blaming Valverde, no, it’s your board who wants to sign attackers when it’s clear to the entire world that the midfield and defence needs a complete revamp. But you keep focusing on Neymar 👍

[kunwar]

The very core of this club is rotten at the moment. Everything, from on-field play to the ideology and values, is deranged. The board is the exact opposite of what you expect from a Barca board: marquee signings without any plan (Coutinho and Griezmann), signings that don't fit (Andre Gomes and Paulinho), poor wage bill regulation, poor la Masia management. Everything's is rotten. And Valverde is basically helping them on the field by trying to literally bring barca to bilbao's level as he had vowed to when he was Athletic's coach. And the sad part is that I don't see this changing until the next presidential elections.

[tgo]

Gavi, Ansu Fati, Alejandro Balde, Nico, Eric Garcia, you can include Araujo and Torre in the mix as well, are exciting players from la masia. Maybe it was just that the production of big club academies is inversly related to the performance of the first team.