12x 10 million and more
© Imago
From Lionel Messi to Xavi, Andrés Iniesta and Sergio Busquets to Pep Guardiola or Lamine Yamal – the list of stars who were trained in the Youth Academy La Masia of FC Barcelona is long and well -known. Not all known talents from there also became professionals among the blue grana. Leverkusens Alejandro Grimaldo, for example, who is being intensively associated with a return, has not yet played a professional game for his youth club. The situation was similar with Dani Olmo before he returned to Barça in the summer of 2024. The TM database even has twelve professionals with at least 10 million euros in the market value that were in La Masia but never ran for the Barcelona professionals.
There are various reasons for this: Grimaldo saw, for example, in early 2016, when he switched from the FCB reserve to Benfica, in Lisbon the chance higher to assert himself as a regular in a good team-he should be right. It was also the case with Olmo, who went the detour via Dinamo Zagreb and then RB Leipzig. If the Spanish left -back changes from Bayer Leverkusen to Barcelona this summer, he takes this step at his youth club with around ten years late. It was only in March that Grimaldo spoke openly about the dream of returning to FC Barcelona.
Xavi Simons, the most valuable player in this ranks, followed the lucrative offer of Paris Saint-Germain in 2019, making it similar to CESC Fàbregas (Arsenal) or Gerard Piqué (Man United). Both, like Olmo, later returned to their roots and experienced the most successful times of their career there.
Who are the next top talents from La Masia?
Whether Simons is also an option for a return is also due to how the next generation from La Masia develops, which is already scraping with the hooves with regard to the professional team. The 16-year-old Férnandez-Cousins Guille and Toni, who belong to the regulars of the Barcelona Atlètic, threatened by a descent into the 4th league, are to be emphasized. Toni Férnandez was presented by the transfer market in the Talenten Calendar in 2024, and in January he became Lamine Yamal in the Copa del Rey for the latest Barça professional debutant.
In the U19, which has just been successful in the Youth League, midfield talent Quim Junyent (18) and Ibrahim Diarra (18), who came from Mali in January, emerged. The latter not only towered out in the Youth League final against trabzonspor (4: 1) with three goal participations, but also became top scorer (5 goals/4 templates) at the U17 World Cup 2023, where his team took third place). In addition, the Pedro Fernández (17) as well as the U16 midfield jewels Orian Goren (16) and Ebrima Tunkara (15) must also be mentioned in the U19. The most well-known player in La Masia may be Shane Kluivert (17), son of the Dutch striker icon. He was also part of the Talenten Calendar 2024.
Whether Noah Darvich (18) made the leap to the Barcelona professionals after his transfer from Freiburg (2023) will be shown. In mid-February, his father described the path of the German U-national player in La Masia as hard, but he was full in the target.