Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsi Among Academy Graduates Powering Barcelona's Champions League Push As Xavi Garcia Pimienta Explains La Masia's Success

Barcelona face Atletico Madrid within the Champions League quarter-finals this week having made historical past within the spherical of 16. Their 7-2 second-leg win at dwelling to Newcastle was the largest by a Spanish facet in opposition to an English opponent in 60 years.

Robert Lewandowski performed his half. Even at 37 the targets proceed to circulation. But the outcome was achieved with the membership’s youngest crew in knockout historical past, its common age introduced all the way down to 25 years and 18 days by the inclusion of 5 gamers from their La Masia academy.

By fielding Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsi and Marc Bernal among these 5, Barcelona overtook Ajax as the membership to have given essentially the most begins to youngsters within the Champions League knockout levels. They used one other from the bench in Xavi Espart.

Together with Yamal, Cubarsi, Bernal and others together with Fermin Lopez, Gavi and Eric Garcia, Espart, an 18-year-old midfielder likened to Philippe Lahm by supervisor Hansi Flick, is one among 14 gamers from their academy to have featured at senior stage this season.

A CIES Football Observatory examine in January decided that Barcelona’s under-contract academy graduates have a switch worth practically thrice as excessive as every other membership’s on this planet.

Xavi Garcia Pimienta has watched them flourish proudly.

The 51-year-old, who most just lately labored as Sevilla’s head coach, has Barcelona in his blood and a novel understanding of the interior workings of La Masia developed over the course of three many years, first as a participant, then throughout a 17-year spell as a coach.

He received the UEFA Youth League with Barcelona’s U19s in 2018, beating Chelsea within the last, and was even talked about as a candidate to succeed Ernesto Valverde and Ronald Koeman at first-team stage having impressed as head coach of Barça B.

He nonetheless feels a deep affinity with the membership. “I feel very connected to the fact Barcelona has so many homegrown players in the first team right now,” he tells Sky Sports. “It’s an honour for me because I’ve been part of that process too, both as a player and a coach.

“These gamers are demonstrating the extent that they’ve, with the clear method of taking part in that after all got here with Johan Cruyff and has been maintained and perfected ever since at a membership the place it isn’t nearly successful, but additionally how you win.”

Why La Masia is unique

Cruyff is of course inextricably linked with modern-day Barcelona having reshaped the club’s identity and playing style following his appointment as manager in 1988 with a set of principles which included a commitment to developing players from La Masia.

“There is a earlier than and after Cruyff,” says Garcia Pimienta.

“Barça was a great club like many others but Cruyff’s way of training and his way of understanding of the game became established and his methodology was used at every level of the club.

“So, what these gamers are actually doing within the Barça first crew, they have been doing three or 4 years in the past within the youth ranks, which I believe is the inspiration of all the things.

“There have been times when Barça have had first-team coaches with a different profile, but from Barça B down, everyone has always trained and played the same way and that helps create the sense of belonging which I believe is what makes it special.

“For instance, now we’re seeing movies of Cubarsi, Lamine and Marc Bernal taking part in collectively once they have been 10 years outdated within the academy.

“Imagine the process of growing up together and going through each age group together every season. The dream is to one day arrive in the first team and they’ve managed it. Imagine what it means to these players to play for the club of their lives.

“And as we’ve seen, Barcelona has been doing glorious work on this regard for a very long time. Almost each time they put an rising expertise from their academy into their first-team squad, they find yourself managing to make the step up.”

Garcia Pimienta uses the example of the all-conquering Barcelona teams of Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique which were dominated by players from La Masia, many of whom he coached himself, including Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Cesc Fabregas.

“The best days of Barcelona,” he says. “A full stadium and a first team made up of players made in the academy.”

He now sees parallels with Flick’s crew as they goal to repeat the successes of these generations. “It comes back to that feeling of belonging,” he says. “‘I am a Barça fan, and on top of that I’ve reached a Barça first team which is competing to win everything.'”

Intelligence over physicality

The success of La Masia will depend on alternative at first-team stage however youth recruitment and expertise identification are additionally key. Everything is geared in the direction of nurturing gamers with the attributes Barcelona’s short-passing, possession-dominant model calls for.

“The players we scouted were always players with the profile of understanding the game, who could grasp what we were going to teach them here, so that the day they reach the first team, that is the football they know how to play,” says Garcia Pimienta.

“I think that’s another key difference with other clubs. They really believe in their methodology and they try to recruit players with the ability to understand the game.”

Their priorities in how they establish and recruit younger gamers aren’t any secret. While the extra dominant gamers in younger age teams have a tendency to face out to different golf equipment, Barcelona look past physicality.

“They always pick last at recruitment camps,” says one agent.

Garcia Pimienta provides: “When you sign Iniesta or Pedri, you’re not looking for a physical marvel, you’re looking for a talented player with the ability to think.

“Take Fermin, for instance. He is now a giant, sturdy man however he was a really small boy who hardly performed in any respect within the youth classes. He did not have the physique to compete with everybody else, however he had the footballing intelligence that Gavi has.

“You see a lot of very small players who think very quickly and very well. And if they are homegrown players, they have that feeling of belonging too, which is even better.

“Of course, the bodily coaching is there as effectively. These gamers are prepared and in a position to undergo in opposition to bodily groups for 90 minutes, as they did within the first leg in opposition to Newcastle.

“But Barça is based on footballing talent, on thinking, on being intelligent, on positioning, on always training with the ball.

“And more often than not, they’ve extra possession than the opposing crew, so issues normally find yourself going their method.”

What next for Garcia Pimienta?

Barcelona’s identity shapes its coaches as well as its players and now forms the basis of Garcia Pimienta’s managerial philosophy.

Before his spell at Sevilla last season, he guided Las Palmas to promotion from the second tier playing Barça-like football.

“They were looking for a coach with that style of play, because the players there had that profile. It went very well, both in terms of results and the connection with the fans.

“We have been in a position to get promoted taking part in a really recognisable, very enticing model of soccer, one which I felt deeply related to. The gamers have been in a position to take in all the things I attempted to instil in them and the followers have been in a position to establish with how we performed.”

It was more difficult at Sevilla, where his tenure only lasted 10 months. “That was as a result of their philosophy and strategy was fairly totally different from Barcelona’s and even Las Palmas’,” he says.

But even as physicality takes on higher significance, no less than in England, he stays satisfied the Barcelona method may be exported.

He is simply ready for a possibility to indicate it. Garcia Pimienta has been on the radar of decrease Premier League and Championship golf equipment since his exit from Sevilla final 12 months and is worked up by the opportunity of sooner or later working in England as he ponders his subsequent transfer.

“I believe what’s done in Barcelona can be exported, but only if you have the necessary time, as we did at Las Palmas, for example.

“It comes all the way down to endurance, however finally, gamers all the time need the ball. Training classes needs to be enjoyable, and never simply bodily, however about being protagonists with the ball and making issues occur.

“I am certain that those things can be transferred.”