Whenever you consider footballers’ homes, you in all probability consider luxurious, extravagance and an array of issues that no one might probably want.
Lionel Messi’s home in Castelldefels, a city on the outskirts of Barcelona the place he lived when he performed for the membership, reportedly had two swimming swimming pools, a soccer pitch and a playground. Gerard Pique’s mansion in Esplugues, within the metropolis’s suburbs, had 5 flooring and a tennis courtroom.
Final July, in an interview with GQ journal, Lamine Yamal was requested what the perfect factor was about the place he lived. “My bed room is simply two minutes away from the Barcelona dressing room and I don’t want an excessive amount of time to get there,” he mentioned.
Yamal, 17, is now a worldwide icon after breaking by with Barca and serving to Spain win the European Championship in Germany this summer time. However till very lately {the teenager} lived in what is basically scholar lodging at La Masia — Barcelona’s famend youth academy.
Pau Cubarsi, the Barca centre-back who is similar age as Yamal, nonetheless lives there. It has not labored out too badly for both of them — Yamal has 10 aim involvements (5 objectives, 5 assists) in all competitions this season, whereas Cubarsi is an undisputed starter on the again for Hansi Flick’s aspect.
Not that they obtain any particular remedy. On the finish of every Barca sport at their non permanent house, the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys, Yamal and Cubarsi have had to ensure they don’t miss the automobile that drives them again to the membership’s coaching services, the place they greet the 24-hour concierge on the doorways of La Masia earlier than heading to mattress.
“Which may sound unimaginable to some who usually are not aware of Barcelona and the way the membership is,” says a supply near the primary staff, who requested to stay nameless to guard relationships. “However dwelling in La Masia has been completely instrumental to those children’ breakout success.”
Barcelona’s youth academy advanced, pictured in 2011 (Josep Lago/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
Yamal and Cubarsi dwell within the newest model of La Masia — a contemporary set of buildings inside Barcelona’s Joan Gamper coaching advanced that was opened in 2011. Earlier than that, gamers from the youth ranks would dwell in a constructing subsequent to the Camp Nou that gave the academy its title (the Catalan phrase ‘masia’ is often translated as ‘farmhouse’ — a greater catch-all description may be a rural dwelling specific to the east of Spain, together with Catalonia).
Some gamers would even keep in bedrooms constructed inside Barca’s stadium, earlier than the membership outgrew its unique academy services and wanted to maneuver out. Now La Masia offers lodging for greater than 80 athletes throughout Barcelona’s youth ranks — together with from different sporting disciplines comparable to basketball and handball.
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“La Masia is extraordinary,” says Jordi Roura, who was director of the academy from 2014 to 2021. “There are numerous residences, but it surely’s tough to search out one other one like La Masia.”
Roura performed for Barca as a child and used to dwell in membership lodging, sharing a room and turning into greatest buddies with future managers Pep Guardiola and Tito Vilanova. He was additionally a part of each coaches’ backroom employees throughout their time with the primary staff.
“It has modified quite a bit from my days, every little thing was constructed to get the perfect out of the gamers,” Roura provides. “There are a number of flooring with rooms. The youngest children are those who’re in greater rooms and share with as much as 5 extra team-mates. There are additionally four-people rooms and two-people rooms. Ultimately, we additionally arrange single rooms.”
All meals and meals are supplied by the membership, with gamers consuming in a shared canteen. La Masia has a highschool contained in the services, the place Barca can intently monitor and ensure gamers full their obligatory research. Throughout the Euros in Germany, Yamal handed his ESO exams, the Spanish equal to GCSE exams within the UK or a U.S. highschool diploma.
“The precise constructing the place gamers dwell is actually minutes away from the place the primary staff and the most important stars practice, which strengthens the bond with the membership and makes the participant really feel that they could possibly be there at some point,” says Roura.
The outdated La Masia constructing, pictured in 2011 (Josep Lago/AFP by way of Getty Pictures)
However La Masia has restricted capability. It was historically used for athletes who actually wanted it: these from overseas or from outdoors Catalonia who might not have been in a position to go away their hometown and be part of the membership with out it.
Yamal and Cubarsi are exceptions. They didn’t transfer to La Masia once they joined Barcelona, however they nonetheless ended up there.
Yamal had a typically robust upbringing between town of Granollers, the place his mom Sheila Ebana lived, and the city of Mataro, each round a 40-minute drive to the north-east of Barcelona. He didn’t all the time have a simple option to get to coaching classes or weekend video games and his father, Mounir Nasraoui, must take him on public transport as a result of he didn’t have a driving licence. At different instances, Yamal’s coaches would supply to select him up and drive him to the services.
Barca had been sure they’d a star on their fingers when Yamal turned 12, in order that they spoke to his household and provided him the prospect to maneuver to La Masia.
“The membership grew to become conscious of Lamine’s state of affairs and as quickly as that was evident he was provided a spot to dwell in La Masia,” a supply near Yamal says. “It allowed him to have a neater life. It was simpler to get to high school, simpler to go to coach and simpler to deal with the issues a child needs to be centered on.”
Cubarsi’s causes for shifting had been logistical. Estanyol, the tiny city the place his household are from, is nearly 70 miles from the coaching advanced. As he made his method up the ranks, maintaining along with his staff’s journeys in addition to his research grew to become tougher. La Masia was the right answer.
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“Having two children in Yamal and Cubarsi who’ve managed to determine themselves with Barcelona and Spain whereas nonetheless dwelling right here units a terrific instance to the remainder of the younger abilities,” says Roura.
Yamal and Cubarsi, each 17, are actually key gamers for Barca (Eric Alonso/Getty Pictures)
Issues have modified for Yamal and Cubarsi prior to now few months.
Cubarsi nonetheless lives at La Masia, however Yamal determined to maneuver out as he takes his profession to new ranges. He’s purchased an condo in Sant Joan Despi, a brief drive from Barca’s coaching floor.
However his day by day routine isn’t too completely different — he has to report back to membership services every morning earlier than coaching and there he has breakfast. After that day’s coaching session, Barcelona gamers have lunch there too, so the membership’s nutritionists can monitor their meals. That each one implies that Yamal spends most of his day on the website.
Based on these near the winger, his new place permits him to have extra of a non-public life and someplace he can change off from soccer. His cousin Mohamed, who can also be Yamal’s private driver, spends virtually on daily basis with him and takes him to coaching.
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Regardless of the transfer, Yamal’s camp insist his way of life has not modified a lot. However it’s exhausting to flee the impression Euro 2024 had for a youngster who was ready to make use of public transport with out being recognised a 12 months and a half in the past.
Final month, a 17-year-old Spanish boy with a passing resemblance for Yamal went viral on social media. He recorded himself strolling out of Barca’s official retailer, which led to dozens of individuals surrounding him asking for photos. The native authorities had been pressured to intervene to escort {the teenager} away.
Yamal was removed from impressed after seeing that incident on social media, but it surely is only one instance of the value he has needed to pay for his rise to stardom — which could not have occurred so shortly with out dwelling at La Masia.
There’s a lesson there for anybody who desires to be in command of the membership within the close to future: nothing contributes to the Barca model like the trail taken by children comparable to Yamal and Cubarsi.
(High photograph: Getty Pictures. Visible design by Kelsea Petersen)
