‘La Masia’ academy, FC Barcelona’s training ground for young footballing talent has always produced some world-class players like Argentinian genius Lionel Messi and Spain’s midfield duo of Xavi Hernandez and Andreas Iniesta, who all play for the Catalan club and have been the players behind Barca’s recent dominance in club football.
While, Messi is undoubtedly the best player in the world today, Xavi and Iniesta are the players who pull the strings in Barcelona and Spain’s midfield and ironically have made it impossible for talents such as Cesc Fabregas and Mikel Arteta to warrant a place in Spain’s starting eleven.
Xavi and Iniesta are both part of La Masia’s youth system
Infact, the majority of the Spanish side is in fact Barca’s first team itself, with many players which include Sergio Busquets and Pedro Rodriguez having been a part of the ‘La Masia’ style of football.
The academy was inspired by former Dutch and Barcelona legend Johan Cruyff, who wanted to train aspiring footballers in the ‘Total Football’ philosophy which had made Holland a side to fear during the 1970s.
So over the years, the academy has trained young footballers to play a free-flowing and attacking brand of football and has its own version of ‘one-touch’ football called the ‘Tiki-Taka’, which has players playing a ‘one-touch’ passing game for long periods.
In fact, each of the new trainees have to start off playing with the senior team and try to win the ball off a series of one touch passes.
Spain used the ‘Tiki-taka’ successfully to demolish Italy in the Euro 2012 final
This philosophy is the reason as to why Barcelona and Spain always manage to pass their opponents out of a match and have a huge possession dominance in almost all of their games.
Xavi and Iniesta are the two ‘pass masters’ who lead other young players by this philosophy and have set up innumerable assists and winners at both club and national level.
Xavi is known to be one of the best passers in modern day football (Italian Andrea Pirlo will probably come a close second!) and is always at the heart of many of Spain and Barca’s goals which have come off his unerring passes.
Iniesta is the more attacking of the two, with an equally impressive passing record and not to mention his dribbling abilty too.
So, while Xavi and Iniesta have established themselves as players of repute from the famed academy, there are players such as Jefferen Suarez (also a part of ‘La Masia’) waiting in the wings ready to break into the Spanish national team.
Trainees at a regular practice session at the academy
‘La Masia’ has ensured that over the years its free-flowing style of football taught to its young trainees has also helped Barca build-up a strong reserve ‘B’ side which contains of youngsters good enough to break into any top Premier League side any given day.
Also, the academy has had its fair share of quality coaches over the years (Pep Guardiola, Louis Van Gaal) who have ensured Barcelona’s steady rise in club soccer as a force to be reckoned with.
So, irrespective of whether Barcelona produces a player of the caliber of either a Xavi or an Iniesta in the coming years, Cruyff’s brainchild ‘La Masia’ has ushered in a brand new and beautiful style of soccer which will probably be the best in Barcelona and Spain’s rich footballing history!
