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Barcelona’s academy has long been regarded as one of if not the greatest talent factory in the sport. It’s been a decade and a half since Pep Guardiola—a La Masia product himself—led a Barcelona team that dominated Europe with the majority of its players being homegrown. Its impact on the sport was so strong that La Masia was also the foundation of a Spanish nationalteam that won two European Cups and a FIFA World Cup between 2008—2012.
After a prolonged stretch of domestic and European success, somewhere along the road in the mid 2010s, Barcelona lost its way. La Masia stopped being the club’s main source of first team players and there was a shift to a more Real Madrid like approach, spending gigantic amounts of money in transfers and wages. The plan ultimately failed and slowly the team sank into the cusp of bankruptcy, losing its greatest ever player, Lionel Messi, as a consequence.
Flick arrived after Barcelona’s second trophy-less season of the decade cost club legend, Xavi Hernández, his job. During the summer, the club’s only significant signing was midfielder Dani Olmo, a former La Masia talent. Other than him, Flick is working with essentially the same group of players that finished 10 points back of Real Madrid in La Liga last season.
Flick looked inward to the club’s academy to build out his squad. The turnaround was immediate. Barcelona won its first seven games in La Liga. The team currently sits nine points clear of Real Madrid in the league and is in the automatic qualification spots to the round of 16 in the UEFA Champions League. Flick’s men are playing some of the best soccer of any club in Europe currently, …
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