Barcelona and its La Masia: Creating Star Players, rather than Buying Them

La Masia is the football academy of a club from Catalan, Barcelona. La Masia has produced a lot of talented players, including Lionel Messi, who nowadays is considered the best player in the world. La Masia is genuinely successful in shaping players. Every player who has been joining La Masia will have something different that differs them from the player from other professional football club academies. It is proven that there are a lot of La Masia’s graduates—although it is not in big teams—that always have value which makes them be the first choice of coaches. 

La Masia is the producer of prime Barcelona players. Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta, Xavi, Sergio Busquets, Carles Puyol, and Pique are the examples. These players were able to achieve sextuples for Barcelona back in 2009. Even their coach at that time, Pep Guardiola, is one of the La Masia products. La Masia is genuinely special in that it can make its player have special characteristics which "spices" them. 

In the previous season, Barcelona experienced financial problems, which made them unable to buy players that they needed. With stuck gameplay, their game becomes easily predictable, which makes them lose a lot of games. With La Masia, Barcelona promoted several players from the academy to the main team while other teams signed a lot of players. Barcelona seems like “creating their own stars”, proven by several players that become the mainstays for Barcelona at the moment, Pedri and Gavi. There is also a new enormous talented player who has been shining in academy and Spain U19, Lamine Yamal. Of course, again, he is the product of La Masia. 

This season, with new Germany coach, Hansi Flick, who is former Germany national team coach, Barcelona is slowly starting to return to the top, even leading by several points from its classic rival, Real Madrid. Hansi Flick, combines players who had reached their prime age with La Masia graduates. Moreover, Lamine Yamal, whose age is 17 years, became the first choice for the main team. He is the real beast in the right wing position, with good technique and his left foot. Another La Masia graduate is Pedri, who has already become a crucial player since the previous season, either for Barcelona or Spain. There is a new name in the defensive midfield position, Marc Casado, which looks impressive in the middle. Another name is Pau Cubarsi, whose age is the same as Lamine Yamal. He really performed well as a stopper for Barcelona at a very young age. With senior player, Inigo Martinez, he managed to become a solid fortress for Barcelona since Ronald Araujo left due to injury. 

La Masia has created a lot of talented players. They always have special value because they are the graduates from La Masia, which makes them will always be sought after by other teams because of their status as graduates of La Masia. Through creating star players rather than buying them, La Masia will always be crucial for Barcelona. 

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