Top 5 current Barcelona players who graduated from the club’s academy
Barcelona is one of the most important clubs in football's history. For a long time, the Catalan club has been a pioneer in developing new and progressive footballing ideologies. A common factor, across all of their eras, has been their emphasis on developing young prodigies from their famous academy - La Masia.
La Masia is an esteemed institution across all of Europe. Young players often dream about arriving at this institution and being part of the Barcelona first team. La Masia, after all, has produced one of the greatest players ever to grace the footballing world - Lionel Messi.
There have been times when Barcelona have required a revival in their form. For this, they have always returned to the basics and gone back to their academy to find their next set of superstars.
Pep Guardiola did the same when he assembled his champion Barcelona team which went on to win everything in football. Guardiola's core team majorly comprised of La Masia graduates. These are players who, after all, understand what it is like to play for FC Barcelona and its values.
The current team does comprise of numerous La Masia graduates. Barcelona's management have looked to revive their academy and return to their glory days. However, current players such as Jordi Alba will miss out on our list as they were originally released by the club.
On that note, let's take a look at the
Top 5 current Barcelona players who graduated from the club’s academy
#5 Riqui Puig
Riqui Puig is a twenty-two year old central-midfielder for FC Barcelona. He is a player who has come through Barcelona's glorious academy - La Masia. During his time there, he racked up fifty-six appearances for Barcelona B and scored two goals.
But with Ronald Koeman at the helm and a transitioning Barcelona squad, he is finding playing time hard to come by and is most often seen on their bench. So far he has only made twenty-nine appearances for the first team and scored one goal.
He has already been tipped for greater success by top managers. Gattuso has previously called Puig a spectacular talent after he shone in a performance against his AC Milan team. It means Barcelona surely have a lot of potential on their hands with Riqui Puig in their ranks.
Despite being heavily underutilised by Koeman, Riqui Puig remains one of the brightest gems of LaMasia. 💎
It's difficult to understand why a player of his talent isn't playing more. It feels he could be among Barcelona's game-changers.
Here's his player profile.
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|THREAD| https://t.co/R87E1O4lJs
#4 Ansu Fati
Ansu Fati is a superstar in the making for European giants Barcelona. After he miraculously broke into the first team, it meant that another La Masia graduate would be featuring for Barcelona.
Fati presently holds the record of being the second-youngest player to represent Barcelona, as he made his debut at just sixteen years of age.
He has a total of forty-one appearances and thirteen goals to his name. Ansu Fati is surely ready to become the next Barcelona superstar as he makes a return from injury in his team's latest fixture in La Liga.
😏 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐈’𝐦 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲.
💙❤️ @ANSUFATI https://t.co/QUgqN2YYFO