The secret of the generation that wants to lead Barça

BarcelonaLamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsí, Marc Bernal and now… Xavi Espart. His name has already appeared in the newspapers and sports talk shows, but this Sunday he took another step in his meteoric rise to the first team. The Barcelona-born footballer –who has started in all five League matches this season– made his goalscoring debut with Barça in the victory at Llevant's ground (2-4). "He is a player who played on the inside until he was a cadet. He improved plays when the ball passed through his feet and had the footballing intelligence to organize. He ended up playing many minutes because he was very reliable. When he was older, they tried him out as a full-back because he has great vision for building up the play and could end up occupying more interior positions during the match," explains a former youth coach of his to ARA.

Espart's goal is one more step for the 2007 generation, one of the best to have come out of Barça's youth academy in recent years. "It is one of the most complete. The theory within the club is that the good ones are detected from a young age, and these players corroborate it. The most prominent players of the 2007 generation were already at the club during the 7-a-side football stage," highlights people who worked with this generation at La Masia. Apart from the four aforementioned footballers, other names also appear, such as Jofre Torrents –transferred this summer to Ajax–, Quim Junyent –who has left for Almeria–, Andrés Cuenca –loaned to Sporting de Gijón from Como–, or Shane Kluivert –son of Patrick Kluivert, who is currently with the reserve team.

A life together at the nursery

The first to join the Blaugrana structure were Lamine Yamal and Marc Bernal. Both arrived in 2014 at just seven years old; the winger from Rocafonda came from La Torreta, while the midfielder from Berguedà played for Gimnàstic de Manresa. At the pre-benjamí level, both footballers already coincided on the team coached by David Sánchez. One year later, in 2015, Xavi Espart would arrive from Vilassar de Mar, although they would not coincide throughout the entire benjamí stage. Espart joined Benjamí D with Landry Farré (currently at the Blaugrana reserve team), while Lamine and Bernal were in Benjamí C, where they were the top scorers with 56 and 50 goals, respectively.

Pau Cubarsí, for his part, was the last to arrive at La Masia. He did so in 2018, already in the alevín category, coming from Girona. The center-back from Estanyol shared the dressing room, in his first year as a blaugrana, with Bernal, Lamine –who continued to be the team's top scorer– and Shane Kluivert. All of them were in an Alevín A that was proclaimed champion of the Preferential League, the LaLiga Promises tournament, and the Championship of Catalonia.

It was not until the 2019-20 season that all four players coincided on the same team. It was in an Infantil B that had Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsí as two of its main scorers at the moment when the competition was stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides Bernal, Espart, Lamine, and Cubarsí; Jofre Torrents, Andrés Cuenca, Quim Junyent, and Shane Kluivert are other prominent names from that team coached by Albert Puig Alcaide.

Precisely, Puig –current director of the Girona academy– is a key figure in the careers of some of these footballers. Besides helping them grow from the role of coach, he was also one of those responsible for incorporating them into the Blaugrana structure. People who followed that team assure ARA that it was Puig who changed the way they understood the game.

The four Blaugranas would only coincide for two seasons in the youth teams; the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons in the Infantil A, where they won all 15 matches of the Division of Honor. Lamine Yamal quickly jumped to the Cadet A and Juvenil A before debuting with the first team on April 29, 2023, at only 15 years old. In fact, the player from Rocafonda had minutes with the first team before the reserve team, with which he debuted on May 6, 2023. Cubarsí also went on skipping stages and after one year in the Cadet B he was already in the Juvenil B dynamic. The 2023/24 season, at 16 years old and with a Juvenil A registration, he debuted in the Copa del Rey. Marc Bernal and Xavi Espart also made their debuts with Hansi Flick at youth age.

They all form part of the German coach's backbone. Cubarsí and Lamine have already accumulated more than 100 matches with the first team shirt in little more than three seasons. Bernal is one of the great bets for the present and future of the midfield and Xavi Espart has earned Hansi Flick's trust, whether as a full-back or in more interior zones. All this with four footballers who have only turned 19 years old this year.

The matter, however, does not stop here. Albert Puig is also the architect of the arrival of Ebrima Tunkara (Lamoi, Gambia, 2010) to Barça, one of the next Blaugrana promises who already debuted under Flick's orders this pre-season. “I told him: «Marc [Serra, coordinator of Blaugrana 7-a-side football], I don't usually commit myself so quickly, but this is something out of the ordinary». He had to be polished technically, but one could already intuit a very good level and physically he also stood out a lot, overcoming lines and rivals”, explained to ARA the current director of the Girona academy in reference to the first time he saw Tunkara play.