Declining of La Masia Academy
Based in a philosophy history rooted in hard work, Barcelona football academy La Masia provided the base for the finest football team in history – became synonymous with technical excellence approach like no other youth academy around and was the production line for Barcelona’s brilliant side as Lionel Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Carles Puyol, Gerard Piquet, to name just a few of them that came through the academy’s rank.
The Barça’s system that has produced countless-world talents has diminished and decreased its importance and the heart of the matter may be on Pep Guardiola – a coach that brought up on the traditions of the FC Barcelona. La Masia wined 14 out of 19 trophies during the Guardiola era, a continuity of the precious work done in 2012 by Tito Vilanova. After achieving its peak, the academy current situation is very different. Barcelona were prohibited from transfers in 2015 for irregularities in the signing of young players and supporters raised a banner at Camp Nou saying “Don’t touch La Masia”.
Since Pep Guardiola’s departure, none of the subsequent coaches had paid much attention to promoting youth players. Instead, they promised results by signing first team players which resulted in a departure from the club’s philosophy of promoting from within. The tactics from the current coach Luis Enrique were also completely different to what was taught at the youth levels. While previously the club saw players like Xavi focus on possession and positional play, today’s team plays a lot more direct and became more stagnated from the trio Messi-Suarez-Neymar. Luis Enrique’s culture mindset is much about muscle as it is about technique, which goes against Cruyff’s ethos that is developing and nurturing younger players with potential. He always had asked how the team had played and never asked about the result.