12 players worth €10m+
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From Lionel Messi to Xavi, Andrés Iniesta to Sergio Busquets, Pep Guardiola and most recently Lamine Yamal – the list of stars who have been trained at Barcelona’s famous La Masia youth academy is long and renowned. However, not all of the well-known talents that have emerged have become professionals for the Catalan club. Bayer Leverkusen’s Alejandro Grimaldo, for example, who is currently being heavily linked with a return to the Camp Nou, has not yet played a professional game for his boyhood club. It was a similar story with Dani Olmo, before he returned to Barca last summer. The Transfermarkt database actually lists twelve professionals with a market value of at least €10 million who graduated at La Masia but never played a game for the Barcelona first team.
There are various reasons for this: Grimaldo, for example, believed that when he moved from Barca reserves to Benfica in early 2016, he had a better chance of establishing himself as a regular in a good team in Lisbon – and he was right. The same can be said for Olmo, who took a detour via Dinamo Zagreb and then RB Leipzig. If the Spanish left-back moves from Leverkusen to Barcelona this summer, he will be making up for lost time at his boyhood club around ten years after leaving. Just last March, Grimaldo spoke openly about his dream of returning to Barcelona.
Dutch attacking midfielder Xavi Simons, the most valuable player in this XI, accepted a lucrative offer from Paris Saint-Germain in 2019, following in the footsteps of Cesc Fàbregas (Arsenal) and Gerard Piqué (Man United). Both Fàbregas and Piqué, like Olmo, later returned to their roots and enjoyed the most successful periods of their careers in Catalonia.
Who are the next top talents from La Masia?
Whether Simons will also be considered for a return in the future will likely depend on how the next generation of La Masia stars develop. Notable players include the 16-year-old Férnandez cousins, Guille and Toni. Both regular starters for Barcelona Atlètic, who are threatened with relegation to the fourth division this season. Toni Férnandez was featured by Transfermarkt in its 2024 talent calendar; in January, he became the second youngest Barca professional debutant after Yamal in the Copa del Rey.
In the U19 team, which has recently been successful in the UEFA Youth League once again, midfield talent Quim Junyent (18), and Ibrahim Diarra (18), who arrived from his native Mali in January, have stood out. The latter not only shone in the Youth League final against Trabzonspor (4:1) scoring a hat-trick, but also provided the most goal contributions (five goals/ four assists) at the 2023 U17 World Cup, where his team finished third. Also worthy of a mention is Pedro Fernández (17), who is also active in the U19 team, as well as the U16 midfield gems Orian Goren (16) and Ebrima Tunkara (15). The most well-known player in La Masia is perhaps Shane Kluivert (17), son of the iconic Dutch strike. He was also part of the 2024 talent calendar.
