Life at La Masia

Seni

La Masia

Hello my name is Xavi Llorens and I am the director of the best youth academy in the world, La Masia. La Masia is the home of upcoming superstars, it is a very successful academy that has produced world class players such as Lionel Messi, Mikel Arteta, Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets and many many more.

Our aim at this academy is to recruit young footballers, train them and turn them into superstars, but it doesn't end there. Once we've done that we want them to go on and play for Barcelona and not just become professional footballers. There are many great academies out in the world but nothing tops La Masia.

In this story I will give you an insight of the life at La Masia. You will watch players who have been recruited turn into superstars. You'll be exposed to the state of the art facilities we have here at La Masia.

So my people, I say to you, welcome to life at La Masia.

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BeanyUnited

12 years

Nice start mate sounds like a good idea for a story

First post!

1

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Seni

12 years

2013-06-03 17:03#108421 BeanyUnited : Nice start mate sounds like a good idea for a story

First post!

Thanks

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wellsy1498

12 years

Great start Seni good to know you mentioned my fave arsenal player arteta too.

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Seni

12 years

Meet the superstars

Our U19's and Barca B team at La Masia are the next generation of players. These are the players my focus is on. Basically what I mean is that they are the future of FC Barcelona. They must be trained well and must develop well. They train 5 times a week, and then play a match once a week. Now you may be wondering the difference between the two, I shall explain.

Barca B is more or less the reserve team. You usually find older players there and advanced youngsters on the brink of becoming professional. They play in the Liga Adelante. Then you have the U19's, this is the youth team, they play in the youth league and when players are too old for this team they move onto Barca B.

In the U19 team there are a few players that we can see are blossoming perfectly.

Jean Marie Dongou

Jean has been with us since 2008 and has developed massively. I remember when he first came. He was shy and quite small in stature but over the past few years that has totally changed, he has turned into a bully of a striker. The 17 year old is one of the hottest prospects in the whole academy.

Gerard Deulofeu

Gerard is a simple example of what we want at this academy. A player who joined La Masia aged nine in 2003 and now look at him, he has already made appearances for our first team. With Mr Moyes in charge I hope he gets more playing time and not less.

These two players stand out and we hope we can keep them at the club for a long time. The more youth graduates that actually play for our academy, the more we prove our academy is the best in the world.

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Seni

12 years

2013-06-03 17:09#108430 wellsy1498 : Great start Seni good to know you mentioned my fave arsenal player arteta too.

Lool thanks

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Rablador

12 years

Dongou will be great. Trust me.

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k1rups

12 years

Great start. Will be interesting to see how you do this

1

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Seni

12 years

Uefa U19 champions league

The Uefa Champions League. A competition this club has had so much success in. However that is the first team. We want to win this competition at U19 level too. Playing in such a good competition at such a young age is an incredible thing for such young players.

The boys travelling around Europe to play different teams with different playing styles helps them gain experience. They're bound to make mistakes and it will force them to learn from their mistakes. Our players must get used to travelling around the globe to play matches now as if they get to the first team, it will be something natural. In the first team you must travel to play games, not just in Spain, or Europe but around the world. Ask players such as Messi or Iniesta, its not everything they learnt here at La Masia. Somethings's they picked up from other players who at that time were based somewhere across the globe.

We have been given quite a tricky group in this year's champions league but we believe we have what it takes to defeat every other team in our group. I feel we are prepared we've won three friendlies comfortably and so I feel we can shine.

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Jamesg237

12 years

The Barcelona squads are ones I have been interested in managing myself but never actually done it. This has been a great start Seni so please don't give up on it.

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Seni

12 years

2013-06-04 10:05#108734 Jamesg237 : The Barcelona squads are ones I have been interested in managing myself but never actually done it. This has been a great start Seni so please don't give up on it.

Thanks James!

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Glenn T

12 years

Interesting start Seni, keep going.

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Deleted

12 years

Good Idea Seni! Look forward to seeing the future Tiki Taka masters

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Seni

12 years

Training

'' Uno-Dos, Uno-Dos, pases rapidos!''. It is very important that we train our players very well and no different to how the first team is trained. We want our players to graduate and be used to the training in the first team, where the only difference is the intensity of the training. The main thing we teach our players here at La Masia is Tiki-taka, the most attractive and useful style of football. The board requests attacking football and so we work most on attacking football although we want to start working on our defensive positioning.

Tiki-taka was formed from when Johan Cruyff was still at the club. The aim of this tactic is to always maintain possession of the ball, pass and move and create channels and play the ball through the channels that have been created. The first team is so successful because they learnt the Tiki-Taka tactic here at La Masia for many years. Mainly players with smaller physique use this to destroy the oppositions midfield and defense. It's all about creating the triangles. Many criticize the tactic for taking so long but we prefer this tactic to just smashing the ball up the field and hoping the striker can control it.

Here's a clear image of how this tactic works:

As you can see the more passes we make and the more movement, the better. Eventually one player will be in a great position, in this case it is Henry and all he needs is a decent through ball and he's in one on one with the keeper. Then its down to him to finish it off. It may seem very complicated but it can be done with less than 5 passes. It all depends on how quick it is done, and one's creativity. If one is very creative he may not need to pass from A to B but may have the capability to pass from A to D which in this case would be from Busquets straight to Henry.

Teams such as Arsenal have picked up this mentality but have edited it with playing with a higher line, we don't want to teach our players this, as if we loose the ball we would be very vulnerable to a counter attack which most likely would result to the opposition scoring.

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Seni

12 years • Edited

Jornada

Sábado 18 de agosto, Nou Camp d'Inca, españoles menores de 19 años el grupo 1

This is our first competitive game of the season. It is a tradition here at La Masia that we make sure our players drop their bags in the changing room and go straight onto the pitch. It is very important they study the pitch well. This tells them the boots they should wear and the style of play to adapt for today. Its quite breezy but still warm as its around 19 degrees.

From what I can see the players like the pitch because its artificial and the ball is flowing, which means our tactic is bound to work. Right now the players are playing keep ball.

Team Talk

Jordi Vinyals: We must focus today. It is the first game of the season and it will be good if we can win. You've been all been out on the field, what's it like?

Sergi Samper: Its quite nice, the ball moves around quite a lot sir.

Jordi Vinyals: Good, so we will continue with the Tiki Taka tactic. Make sure you always form triangles. If we do this they will get frustrated. No sloppy passes! We don't want to be caught on the counter attack. The ref just blew the whistle you must get out there and go an play football.

First half

0-2

I spent the first half in the stands as there was no space for me on the bench. The boys are playing very well. The movement has been intelligent and the finishing has been clinical. Also we are dominating in terms of possession, meaning the formation is working. Throughout the first half I could hear Jordi shouting "Uno-Dos", meaning one-two passing. Jean Marie Dongou gave us the lead in the 13th minute as he found himself one on one with the goalie. Seven minutes later we doubled the lead thanks to a goal from Sanabria.

Team Talk:

Dongou: Necesito hielo el tobillo duele!(I need ice my ankle is hurting!)

Jordi: Ask the physio he'll treat your ankle. Follow him to the physio room. The rest of you, well done. Our tactic is working as you can see. Now they are going to come out stronger therefore we must go out even stronger. Try and wind the game down gradually but no showboating or any of that until we reach the last 10 minutes or so ok?

Whole team: Ci

Final score

0-4

A great victory for our U19's. The second half was just like the first, we completely dominated. Xavi scored in the 48th minute to make it 3-0 and two minutes later Sandro put the game to bed with a nice finish. A good three points in the bag for us.

Vamos a Barca!

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La Masia

Meet the superstars

Jean Marie Dongou

Gerard Deulofeu

Uefa U19 champions league

Training

Jornada

Sábado 18 de agosto, Nou Camp d'Inca, españoles menores de 19 años el grupo 1

Team Talk

First half

Final score

FMS Chat–