As president of Barça and a culé, I am very proud that today eight players from our team, Cubarsí, Pedri, Olmo, Lamine Yamal, Gavi, Èric Garcia, Ferran Torres, and Joan Garcia, can be crowned world champions. And also that many players from the Spanish national team have been trained in Barça’s youth football, La Masia, the undisputed protagonist of the great final between Spain and Argentina, the two best teams of a World Cup that has broken attendance and audience records, for which I congratulate FIFA for the organization as well as the president of the Spanish Federation, his team, and all the players for achieving this historic milestone and also the president of La Liga for his support and collaboration. Both organizations face a great challenge at the 2030 World Cup.
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La Masia is the dream factory where you learn to play with a recognized and recognizable style based on associative play achieved through working on quick passing, ball control in all areas of the game, and constant tactical movements during the match. It is the way of seeing and understanding football of Johan Cruyff with whom, as a player, coach, and inspirer of the style practiced at La Masia, FC Barcelona has experienced its best stages. It is at La Masia where Lamine Yamal was trained, the player who best represents the present and future of Barça and world football. And it is at La Masia where, more than twenty years ago, the greatest player of all time, Leo Messi, emerged, who personifies the most glorious past in Barça’s history and who, thanks to his talent, consistency, and love for football, remains a current player as he demonstrated in the World Cup being the soul of the Argentine national team.
Barça’s and La Masia’s contribution to the national team’s successes was already an undeniable reality in the 2010 World Cup, with Iniesta, Xavi, Puyol, Busquets, Pedro, Piqué, Víctor Valdés, Villa, and Cesc. Today, with the presence of eight Barça players under Hansi Flick, the decisive contribution of Barça to the successes of Spanish football is once again evident. Having eight players in a World Cup final is very important for Barça and institutionally, as president, it is a joy to be able to accompany them at this moment.
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But these successes are not only the result of the players’ talent but also of the sporting directors, technical secretaries, and all the people who for almost fifty years have worked with conviction and courage so that La Masia is considered the best football training school in the world. My special thanks to the current head of youth football, José Ramon Alexanko, and his entire team who, in perfect harmony and coordination with the football director, Deco, share the philosophy of betting on homegrown talent. But it must also be noted that the fact that La Masia is an unprecedented success story in the football world — unforgettable and unrepeatable is the image of Messi, Xavi, and Iniesta on the Ballon d’Or podium in 2010 — is also thanks to the first team coaches who have believed in La Masia as a generator of talent and pride for Barça fans, such as Johan Cruyff, Frank Rijkaard, Pep Guardiola, Tito Vilanova, Luis Enrique, Ronald Koeman, Xavi Hernández, and Hansi Flick.
Today it will be a joy and a pride to witness the duel between Messi and Lamine Yamal
Today it will be a delight to witness the football duel between Messi and Lamine Yamal because it is an undisputed recognition of the playing philosophy practiced at Barça. Personally, I live with emotion that the two most outstanding figures of the World Cup final are culés, two football geniuses who, despite the temporal distance of two decades that separate them, are united by the blaugrana feeling. Nineteen years have passed since the well-known and prophetic photograph organized by the Barça Foundation where we see a four-month-old Lamine Yamal and a twenty-year-old Messi. Today they will meet again in a final that is a tribute to La Masia and everything Barça has given to football. Culés, being president of FC Barcelona is a source of pride and a demonstration that in Catalonia we also do very good work.
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