Barcelona academy La Masia continues to dominate Europe as per recent study | OneFootball

There is no doubt that La Masia has been essential as FC Barcelona have remained one of the top teams in Europe despite their financial problems in the last few years.

The importance of the academy is even more pronounced in this team under Hansi Flick, which has relied a lot on the academy players to get over a difficult start of the season where they missed several of their important players.

But it is not only in the Barcelona first team that the excellence of La Masia is manifesting itself, as graduates from the Blaugrana academy are also proving their talents in other teams and leagues across the world.

As MARCA has reported, this is clear from a study undertaken by the CIES Football Observatory, which was published only a few hours after Lamine Yamal was presented with the Kopa Trophy.

This study has ranked academies according to their ability to produce top-class talent, and La Masia holds a prominent position in these rankings.

If only the players active in the top five European leagues are considered, there are 46 La Masia graduates currently playing, making the Barcelona academy the best one in this regard. The academies of PSG and Real Madrid follow them with 35 and 34 players in the top five European leagues respectively.

Barcelona also stands at a prominent place globally, as it ranks third with its 81 players playing across 49 leagues worldwide. The leader in this ranking is Benfica, which has 94 of its academy graduates currently playing, followed by Boca Juniors, whose academy has 93 active players.

On a broader European level, when all the 30 European leagues are considered, the Barcelona academy once again gets the third position. The best-ranked academy in this regard is that of Ajax, which has 85 active players playing in these leagues. The second-placed Benfica have 84 active players, while Barcelona have 67 active players.