Former Barcelona defender Laurent Blanc has hailed the club’s La Masia academy and highlighted just how important it is to the Catalan giants.
La Masia continues to churn out incredible talent at a quite astonishing rate. Lamine Yamal, Gavi and Alejandro Balde are just some of the academy graduates in the first team right now.
Blanc says that the academy is still the club’s great beating heart and feels Barca could even have disappeared without young stars to rescue them during difficult financial
times.
“It has gone through a difficult time, with financial and administrative problems. But what is it that gets Barça out of their difficulty? It’s the young players. That’s why, for me, Barça has always been a great club with a great training centre, La Masia. For me, this is the heart of the club, it is the heart of the club,” he told Sport.
“If you don’t have La Masia, then Barça wouldn’t have gone ahead. Perhaps it is a club that would have disappeared or fallen. It is the youngsters who have saved the club, the Lamine, Pedri, Gavi...
“There are many young people who have left and it is a club that is going to move forward, that is already champion of Spain, semi-finals of the Champions League, and about to qualify for the final. And with the young people who are leaving, in my opinion, it will be a great club again.”
Barcelona are currently on tour in Asia and have taken another batch of young stars with them. Dro Fernandez, Guille and Toni Fernandez, and Jofre Torrents have all made the trip.
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