Why doesn’t La Masia produce strikers for Barcelona?
This season may well be Robert Lewandowski’s last with Barcelona
“In Saturday’s 3-0 home win against Mallorca, seven of Barcelona’s starting XI were La Masia graduates. Barca’s philosophy has always been to promote as many players as possible from their famous youth academy, but in recent years the number of youngsters coming through to the senior side seems to have accelerated. In that La Liga victory at the weekend, you had Alejandro Balde, Pau Cubarsi and Eric Garcia in defence, and Marc Casado, Dani Olmo (who was at the club early in his youth career but moved to Dinamo Zagreb at 16 then re-signed from RB Leipzig in 2024) and Fermin Lopez in midfield. On the right wing, 18-year-old Lamine Yamal scored a brilliant goal as he passed 10,000 minutes of game time in a Barcelona first-team shirt — it was his 136th appearance since making his debut, aged 15, in April 2023. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)
NY Times/The Athletic: Fermin Lopez’s Barcelona glow up, and how the club almost lost him – twice
On November 25, 2012, Barca had 11 La Masia graduates on the pitch together