21.12.2009 22:16
Recognition for Barça youth academy
Vanessa Forns
Apart from the prestige of getting three of its players among the top five in the FIFA awards, FC Barcelona has the satisfaction of seeing the Club’s youth policy gain the recognition it deserves.
On Sunday Barça was crowned
the best club in the World
thereby putting the finishing touch to a unique year in which it has become the only club to
win six trophies in one year. Now Barça has put three of its players -Messi, Xavi and Iniesta
– among FIFA’s top five. And all three have been nurtured in Barça’s own youth
academy.
Barça and the Golden Ball
However, the FIFA World Player is not the first award to come their way. At the
beginning of December, Messi won the Golden Ball with 473 votes, ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo (233),
Xavi Hernández (170) and Andrés Iniesta (149).
The spirit of Barça
Never before has one club supplied so many of the five nominees. However, what really stands
out more than anything is that all three players were developed by the Club itself.
In this sense, these three players represented the spirit and identity of Barça here this
evening in Zurich. The Barça youth academy, La Masia, has become a reference point for clubs around
the World.
An inexhaustible supply of talent
The Barça youth academy is producing a seemingly inexhaustible supply
of top class footballers and with Josep Guardiola in charge these youth players are being given
their chance in the senior squad. In the final of the World Club Cup, six of Barça’s starting
eleven were products of the academy. With Pedro and Jeffren coming on in the second half, there
were no fewer than eight products of the youth system on display.