A look at FC Barcelona’s celebrated cradle of talent

Mes que un club (more than a club) — the phrase is everywhere.

The sprawling expanse of FC Barcelona and the club’s dominance of the sport Spain follows with a passion — football — offers a measure of its prominence in the Catalonian population’s psyche. This pride in the club’s achievements sanctifies the ambience at Camp Nou, making any visit a pilgrimage of sorts.

Central to the idea of Barcelona — and what sets it apart from other football clubs —is the pre-eminence of La Masia, its cradle of talent. A large part of the awe Camp Nou evokes can be attributed to the fact that many of the dazzling stars on the billboards that enwrap the giant stadium are home-grown.

“La Masia is a term that is now world famous, and which describes the club’s sporting, human and academic training system,” says the club’s official booklet. “It is a school for life and sport that has created its own way of doing things.”

A look at some of the academy’s graduates — Pep Guardiola, Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta, Xavi, Carles Puyol, and Sergio Busquets, deified by football fans across the globe — suggests that the claim isn’t as lofty as it sounds.

The training grounds, dedicated stadiums and modern facilities incubate the development of 617 athletes in football and four other disciplines — basketball, handball, roller hockey and futsal. This is the ‘Masia 360’ programme, which seeks to apply the knowledge gathered at the club over the decades.

“Football is the prime area of focus and we have four categories of age-groups going upwards from the under-12 stage,” says Jordi Roura, one of the top coaches at La Masia. “All the teams are developed with the same ideal and philosophy of a playing style that intrinsically represents FC Barcelona. Simply, the idea is to dominate the game by holding the ball.” The ‘rondo’ exercises, which involve short, sharp passing under pressure in small spaces, is key, Roura says.

The Masia model came into being in 1979 with the creation of a residence for young footballers for the first time in Spain. The training modules were introduced by the father of Total Football, Rinus Michels, and later enhanced by his pupil and Dutch legend Johan Cruyff, who managed Barcelona from 1988 to 1996.

The academy was originally housed in an old country cottage next to Camp Nou, called La Masia de Can Planes, which is where it draws its name from. In Catalan, a masia is a family farmstead — a building located near the main farm.

Despite the celebration of La Masia and its success, many of its graduates don’t make the cut. And whenever a top young talent leaves because he can’t break through or when a non-academy squad player is bought, there is, inevitably, criticism and deep disappointment among Barcelona’s fans.

“Getting into the first team is very difficult for a player even if he comes from La Masia,” says Roura, about these issues. “We have had many good players but not all could reach the high level of excellence one needs to get into the first team.”

Among the many looking to reach the level Roura refers to is Sean Kluivert, the nine-year-old son of former Dutch and Barcelona striker Patrick Kluivert.

Turning out for the under-12 side, Sean is seen doing a lot in the attacking third in an 8-1 win over a visiting side. No one offers any comment: a La Masia guideline discourages staff from picking out trainees for special mention. If Sean is to take the position his father once enjoyed, he will have to do it the Barcelona way: earn it.

(The writer was in Barcelona recently at the invitation of La Liga)