Barcelona were always renowned for the quality of player that they would bring through to the first team from their La Masia academy, though it’s fair to say that the well has almost dried up in recent years. It’s often been suggested that Pep Guardiola got lucky with the amount of homegrown stars he could call upon during his tenure, but while that might be partly true, the club were still more than happy to give the youngsters their wings. There’s more of a reticence with the current board to do that, with Barca now competing with the biggest clubs in the world for the signatures of the biggest players in the world. That’s great if you’re a supporter who wants your team to sign the best, but for a club like Barca, whose foundations were built on a different model, it’s understandable why their faithful remain unhappy at spiralling wages and lack of opportunities for their homegrown players. It’s not as if they don’t have the players to bring in either. Carles Alena is the most recent to have made the step up, and he can now consider himself a fully-fledged member of the senior side, and yet he’s the first since Sergi Roberto some years before to truly make a mark. Fortunately, there are a few more players on the horizon that we could get to see in the near future.

Riqui Puig

The jewel in Barca B’s crown, Riqui Puig is the future of Barcelona if you believe club insiders. Just 19, he’s cut from the same cloth as Andres Iniesta. A diminutive midfielder, but with Barca DNA, incredible balance and an eye for a pass, he’s completely fearless and a dream to watch in full flight. Even AC Milan coach, Gennaro Gattuso, was forced to admit when seeing Puig play his side in a pre-season friendly that he was “amazed to see a lad with the face of a child treat the ball like that. I see that he feels football inside him and what he did was like poetry.”