Marc Bartra - The latest star off the La Masia conveyor belt?

It’s easy to fall for the trap and believe that every youth product coming out of a club who has, in recent years, produced some of the world’s finest talent is going to be the next Franz Beckenbauer or George Best. Following Manchester United’s class of ’92 – David Beckham and co – that was certainly the case in the north of England, however Luke Chadwick, Ben Thornley and Lee Roche didn’t live up to their esteemed elders.

Barcelona are experiencing a similar phenomenon now. Admittedly La Masia, their famed youth academy, did enable them to field a side made up entirely of its graduates against Levante last season, but it’s unreasonable to expect players of the caliber of Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi to keep walking out of the farmhouse year on year.

That very reason has been the forefront of a worldwide campaign – seemingly involving everyone but Barcelona – for the Catalans to buy a central defender for the best part of two years. Carles Puyol’s old they say, Javier Mascherano’s good for large parts of the 90 minutes but contains too many errors they say – he was at fault for goals conceded against AC Milan and Ajax – and Gerard Pique is hot and cold they say. Barca need a world class centre back, they say.

And as they fell to their first defeat of the Gerardo Martino reign against Ajax in the Champions League on Tuesday night, their fragility in defence when teams press high was evident once again. Admittedly they were without either of their first choice full-backs – Dani Alves and Jordi Alba – while their back-up, Adriano, was also out, but it was the absence of a young man, a La Masia product, sat on the bench which was perhaps most notable.

Whether Barca’s reluctance to sign a defender has been out of complete ignorance or a knowledge that Marc Bartra will come to the fore is still up for debate, but in losing to Ajax it was clear in the 22-year-old’s absence how much he has improved over the past two months.

Bartra has played in eight of Barcelona’s last nine league matches after featuring in none of the first five – he’s also played in the only two Champions League matches when La Blaugrana have kept clean sheets. His form led to a call up to Vicente del Bosque’s Spain squad and, against Equatorial Guinea, he proudly made his debut, starting alongside Inigo Martinez in the middle of defence.

Del Bosque’s not his only fan though. A search for “Marc Bartra” on Twitter at half-time during Tuesday’s loss in Holland and a working knowledge of Spanish and/or Catalan revealed that large sections of Barca’s support rate their young defender as the best at the club at the moment.

Anyone who’s watched him recently would appreciate why.

His passing – he’s completed 94% of his passes in La Liga – allows him to fit seamlessly into Tata’s side, while at six foot tall he has the height advantage over Mascherano. He’s won 15 of his 21 aerial battles in the league this season. Bartra’s not a rash defender either. If you watch him, you’ll notice he looks composed, in control and perhaps that is demonstrated by 25 interceptions this season.

The flip side is that he’s not played against decent opposition – Ajax and Celtic in Europe aside – yet. The only game he’s missed recently was El Clasico, quite a big game to miss and one which Tata evidently felt he wasn’t ready for.

But while Barca continually come unstuck against any side which presses high and with intensity, it’s unlikely Bartra could do any worse. He still has questions to answer if he’s to be a long-term solution, however, in the now, he should arguably be one of the first names on Martino’s team sheet.

Beckham or Iniesta he’s not yet, but neither is he a Chadwick or a Thornley.