4 Players FC Barcelona need to sell to make way for La Masia
"The player who has passed through La Masia has something different to the rest, it's a plus that only comes from having competed in a Barcelona shirt from the time you were a child."
Pep Guardiola, former Barcelona coach, player and La Masia graduate said these words to every young player aspiring to strut their stuff on the Camp Nou one day. Everyone took notice of La Masia as the best football academy in the entire world, as a generation of players took the step up from the reserve side and won everything club football had on offer in the 2008-09 season.
The only academy to produce the top 3 Ballon d'Or nominees in a single year when a certain Xavi, Iniesta and Messi took to the stage, showed why La Masia had an edge over any other institution in the world.
The production line has certainly wavered over the past few years as Barcelona continue to look elsewhere for inspiration instead of their own backyard. Sergi Roberto and Munir are the last of few to graduate from the fabled institution.
We look at four players who could be offloaded in order to make space for the young and fearless generation to take over.
#1 Jasper Cillessen - Netherlands (Goalkeeper)
Make no mistake! Cillessen is the best backup keeper in the world in my opinion and he deserves to be playing more than he already is. Week after week he sits on the bench while a categorically inform Ter Stegen takes the field. Cillessen has been restricted to the Copa Del Rey for all the seasons that he has been in the Barca squad winning the competition for all of those years.
He has shown a brilliant amount of skill with the ball on his feet while also possessing insane reflexes. In the current market scenario, Jasper Cillessen can easily fetch a good amount for Barcelona and looking at the economic aspect of the deal, it makes massive sense for Barcelona to cash in on him and promote Inaki Pena or Jokin Ezkieta or to bring back Andre Onana from Ajax for half the amount.
The deal makes sense economically and would add important millions to the Barca budget.