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Authors: Guillem Balagué
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ball always travelled more than the player. Usually when children start to play football, they want
to learn to dribble. Guardiola didn’t: he learnt how to pass the ball.
La Masía, a word also used to generically describe the Barcelona youth system, was and still is rich in talent – the product of promoting, for more than three
decades, a style of football now celebrated around the world. ‘Some think it is like the Coca-Cola recipe,’ says the Catalan journalist Ramón Besa, ‘some sort of secret,
winning formula.’ In fact, it’s no secret at all; it is, simultaneously, a simple yet revolutionary idea: possession, combining, defending by attacking and always looking for a way to
the opposition goal; finding the best talent without physical restrictions as the key element of the selection of players. Add to that the commitment to technical quality and ensuring that the kids
develop an understanding of the game. It is a philosophy based on technique and talent: nothing more, nothing less. ‘I have never forgotten the first thing they told me when I came to
Barça as a little boy,’ says the Barcelona midfielder Xavi Hernández. ‘Here, you can never give the ball away.’
The Barcelona model is the consequence of a club that always favoured good football (in the 1950s the Catalan club recruited the Hungarians Ladislao Kubala, Sándor Kocsis and
Zoltán Czibor, key members of the best national team in the world at that time) and also of the revolutionary ideas brought to the club by two men: Laureano Ruíz and Johan Cruyff.
Laureano was a stubborn coach who, in the 1970s, introduced a particular brand of training to Barcelona based upon talent and technique, and by his second season at the club had managed to convince
all the junior teams follow suit. Under Cruyff, dominating the ball became the first and most important rule. ‘If you have the ball, the opposition doesn’t have it and can’t
attack you,’ Cruyff would repeat daily. So the job became finding the players who could keep possession and also doing a lot of positional work in training.
On top of that, La Masía, as all good academies should, develops players and human beings and instils in them a strong sense of belonging, of identity, as Xavi explains: ‘What is
the key to this Barcelona? That the majority of us are from “this house” – from here, this is our team, but not just the players, the coaches too, the doctors, the physios, the
handymen. We’re all
culés
, we’re all Barça fans, we’reall a family, we’re all united, we all go out of our way to make things
work.’
Despite the fact that, since 2011, the old farmhouse no longer serves as a hall of residence, the revolution that started there three decades ago continued and reached its zenith with the
arrival of Guardiola as first-team coach as he put his faith in La Masía’s finest ‘products’. It is, as the Catalan sports writer and former Olympian Martí Perarnau
puts it, ‘a differentiating factor, an institutional flag and a structural investment’ – and it is one that pays dividends as well. In 2010, it became the first youth academy to
have trained all three finalists for the Ballon d’Or in the same year, with Andrés Iniesta, Lionel Messi and Xavi Hernández standing side by side on the rostrum.
‘I had the best years of my life at La Masía,’ Pep recalls. ‘It was a time focused upon the singular most non-negotiable dream that I have ever had: to play for
Barça’s first team. That anxiety to become good enough for Johan Cruyff to notice us cannot be put into words. Without that desire, none of us would be who we are today. Triumph is
something else. I am talking about loving football and being wanted.’
Even though Pep managed to overcome his lack of physical strength and got himself noticed, the final step was missing: the call-up to the first team. But when Johan Cruyff needed a number four,
a player to direct the team in front
to learn to dribble. Guardiola didn’t: he learnt how to pass the ball.
La Masía, a word also used to generically describe the Barcelona youth system, was and still is rich in talent – the product of promoting, for more than three
decades, a style of football now celebrated around the world. ‘Some think it is like the Coca-Cola recipe,’ says the Catalan journalist Ramón Besa, ‘some sort of secret,
winning formula.’ In fact, it’s no secret at all; it is, simultaneously, a simple yet revolutionary idea: possession, combining, defending by attacking and always looking for a way to
the opposition goal; finding the best talent without physical restrictions as the key element of the selection of players. Add to that the commitment to technical quality and ensuring that the kids
develop an understanding of the game. It is a philosophy based on technique and talent: nothing more, nothing less. ‘I have never forgotten the first thing they told me when I came to
Barça as a little boy,’ says the Barcelona midfielder Xavi Hernández. ‘Here, you can never give the ball away.’
The Barcelona model is the consequence of a club that always favoured good football (in the 1950s the Catalan club recruited the Hungarians Ladislao Kubala, Sándor Kocsis and
Zoltán Czibor, key members of the best national team in the world at that time) and also of the revolutionary ideas brought to the club by two men: Laureano Ruíz and Johan Cruyff.
Laureano was a stubborn coach who, in the 1970s, introduced a particular brand of training to Barcelona based upon talent and technique, and by his second season at the club had managed to convince
all the junior teams follow suit. Under Cruyff, dominating the ball became the first and most important rule. ‘If you have the ball, the opposition doesn’t have it and can’t
attack you,’ Cruyff would repeat daily. So the job became finding the players who could keep possession and also doing a lot of positional work in training.
On top of that, La Masía, as all good academies should, develops players and human beings and instils in them a strong sense of belonging, of identity, as Xavi explains: ‘What is
the key to this Barcelona? That the majority of us are from “this house” – from here, this is our team, but not just the players, the coaches too, the doctors, the physios, the
handymen. We’re all
culés
, we’re all Barça fans, we’reall a family, we’re all united, we all go out of our way to make things
work.’
Despite the fact that, since 2011, the old farmhouse no longer serves as a hall of residence, the revolution that started there three decades ago continued and reached its zenith with the
arrival of Guardiola as first-team coach as he put his faith in La Masía’s finest ‘products’. It is, as the Catalan sports writer and former Olympian Martí Perarnau
puts it, ‘a differentiating factor, an institutional flag and a structural investment’ – and it is one that pays dividends as well. In 2010, it became the first youth academy to
have trained all three finalists for the Ballon d’Or in the same year, with Andrés Iniesta, Lionel Messi and Xavi Hernández standing side by side on the rostrum.
‘I had the best years of my life at La Masía,’ Pep recalls. ‘It was a time focused upon the singular most non-negotiable dream that I have ever had: to play for
Barça’s first team. That anxiety to become good enough for Johan Cruyff to notice us cannot be put into words. Without that desire, none of us would be who we are today. Triumph is
something else. I am talking about loving football and being wanted.’
Even though Pep managed to overcome his lack of physical strength and got himself noticed, the final step was missing: the call-up to the first team. But when Johan Cruyff needed a number four,
a player to direct the team in front
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