Since 2002, La Masia has been considered the world’s premier football development academy. In 2010, La Masia had the unique honour to have trained all three finalists for the Ballon d’Or in a single year with Andres Iniesta, Lionel Messi and Xavi.
It’s extremely difficult to get a look beyond the front gates into its secretive, closely guarded training process, but with the help of my friend Marc Valiente, we succeeded. Marc spent 8 years at La Masia, being a club captain for most of his youth development, playing alongside future (at the time) Barca greats like Cesc Fabregas, Lionel Messi and Gerrard Pique.
We took in a few training sessions, met many interesting people including the manager, scouts and FC Barcelona B team coach, Gerard Lopez. Technical Director, Jordi Roura, came to personally say Hello and it was great to meet him, since he was previously also on top squad staff.
This insightful and fortuitous experience will help us to move VSA even higher and improve the quality of training for all our locations worldwide.
