Barcelona / Vic / Lleida / Manresa / Sant Pol At the end of the 1970s, Barça realized that it needed a good academy to train future football stars. In 1979 the club inaugurated La Masia, located next to Camp Nou in the old Can Planes manor house, one of the few remaining in Barcelona. The first to arrive were soccer players, and a few years later basketball and other sports players entered. At the beginning the vast majority were young Catalans, especially between 13 and 18 years old, but as the club improved its recruitment, it also attracted teenagers from all over Spain. In total, nearly 500 young people passed through the old building. More than 40%, Catalans.
During the eighties and early nineties La Masia was occupied by around thirty residents who slept in groups of between seven and ten people per room, in rooms with bunk beds located on the first floor. Downstairs, a dining room with extended tables, a kitchen and a TV room accommodated the players when they weren’t training or in class.
Many of them had not left their native villages or slept outside their homes for more than a week when they entered La Masia. Suddenly, they had left their parents and friends far away to make their biggest dream come true: to play for Barça. Sadness and longing were common among the residents during the first few months. Some did not resist it. “After a week I returned home, to Ferrol, because I was 15 years old and I didn’t fit in. A week later I returned and stayed there for four seasons,” remembers Javier Tomé. He helped others to socialize: “When I arrived there I only spoke Catalan and watched TV3, I had a very closed circle. Meeting Spaniards from all over the State brought me very different views of everything. It made me grow “, explains Sergi Barjuan. Marc Bernaus came from Andorra: “I had never seen a train. Passing through La Masia was like doing the mili”, he points out.
Contact with families was limited; the most common was to talk to them by landline, either with the one inside La Masia or the one in a cabin located outside. “I spent half a year crying because of longing. I was 12 years old”, remembers Lluís Carreras. Residents had to adapt to a completely new environment, bond with peers, study and perform athletically. All of this created a complicated environment, especially for those who found it more difficult to adapt, but which was normalized at that time. “You are 13 years old and suddenly your environment, your family, are at the same time your main competitors. The psychological situation is very beastly, a powder keg”, explains one of the residents who prefers to remain anonymous. However, some boys consider that living these experiences so young away from home made them “mature earlier”, since they “saw things” that people their age “don’t see until much later”, explains Raúl Luque , who was at La Masia between 1992 and 1995.
Assimilate stress and demand
They all knew they were playing for one of the best teams in Europe and that very few would make it to the first team. Ismael López, former resident of La Masia and doctor in sports psychology, explains it like this: “You know that Barça has made an investment in you and that only a small part of all the players will reach the first team. This can cause two reactions. The positive, which makes you mature and makes you a highly competitive person, as I am today. You have to develop the ability to take on and assimilate stress and demand. But on the other side there is the teenager unable to have all this. This person will stay on the road and suffer.” López points out that this high degree of competitiveness requires psychological support that was non-existent at the time: “30 years ago there were no tools to manage it. Now we know that it is very important that they are there.”
“You are 13 years old and suddenly your environment, your family, are at the same time your main competitors. The psychological situation is very beastly, a powder keg”
Former resident of La Masia
Competitiveness and success were closely linked with acceptance within the group. When one succeeded, the rest welcomed him as a leader, but when someone failed or underperformed, he became the center of jokes. Overnight, the status could change radically. And this happened during adolescence, a stage of discovery and reaffirmation of oneself in which clear references and safe spaces are needed. “The first year was difficult for me. When I wasn’t called up I thought: “What am I doing here?” But that made me stronger,” recalls Aureli Altimira.
In that environment, a very high degree of responsibility and commitment was demanded of them, and weakness was not allowed. “I built myself layers of protection against any weakness. You face tough situations thinking that it can’t affect you. You couldn’t be sad, you couldn’t cry. This creates a crust that is very difficult to break later”, remembers Jofre Mateu, who over time has been aware that the five years at La Masia generated “dangerous” emotional habits in him that he has had to manage as an adult and that have affected the their personal relationships. “From the perspective of an adult, I would not leave a 15-year-old boy in that context,” sums up David Araújo.
2023-07-13 18:00:35
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