La Masia is the heart of Barcelona youth system, which located next to the Camp Nou Stadium. It was established in 1979 and now used to develop the young players that have had to leave their families in order to train at Barcelona both in a sporting and intellectual sense.
Apparently they have a total of approximately 260 youth players learning their trade here - Ninety percent of them are Spanish and more than 50 percent Catalans. In fact the current Barca team have 12 first team players who have come from the academy.
There are several youngsters that had lived at La Masia have gone on to play for the first team, such as Josep "Pep" Guardiola (academy years 1984-90), Ivan De la Peña (1991-94), Carles Puyol (1994-98), Andres Iniesta (1996-2001), Víctor Valdes (1996-2000) and Lionel Messi (2000-04).
Pep was touted as La Masia's greatest product. A charismatic player who played 43 caps for Spain and won a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. He led the club to six La Liga titles, one Champions Cup in 1992 and two Spanish Cups.
Puyol, a native Catalunyan, is the club current skipper and heading towards his 250th game for the club.
However not all the graduates of La Masia established themselves at Barcelona and some have moved to other clubs to advance their careers.
These have include de la Pena, Luis Garcia, Jose Manuel Reina, Mikel Arteta, Gerard Pique, Cesc Fabregas and Albert Luque.
Fabregas, also a native Catalunyan, was persuaded by Arsenal manager's Arsene Wenger for a brighter and better-paid future at Arsenal, and so it has proved since he joined the Gunners as a 16-year-old boy in September 2003.
Piqué also has been snapped up by Sir Alex Ferguson to strengthen his team. He is a defender who not only good for his defensive skills but also gets forward and scores.
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Goal Keeper
Arsenal has been blessed with great goal keepers like David Seaman, Jimmy Rimmer, John Lukic, Bob Wilson and Jens Lehmann. But I have gone for Pat Jennings. He was not only great with 1 handed saves he was pretty adept with making saves with his legs.
Right back
Lee Dixon deserves an honorary mention as does Viv Anderson. But I would opt for Pat Rice.
Left back
Ashley Cole and Nigel Winterburn would get into most people's teams. Sammy nelson was decent but my favourite is Kenny Sansom.
Centre Backs
Martin Keown, Sol Campbell, Steven Bould, Willie Young all served Arsenal with such grace and distinction. It was a huge dilemma to leave 1 player out of the 3 I felt were the best of the lot and unfortunately that player is Frank McLintock as I have gone for Tony Adams and David O'Leary.
Midfielders
I have gone for 3 in the midfield but I will start by heaping praise on the efforts of players like Robert Pires (who just narrowly missed out), Marc Overmars, Paul Merson, David Rocastle, Cesc Fabregas(on his way to being an all time great of he keeps his rate up), Paul Davis, Michael Thomas, Brian Talbot, Graham Rix and George Graham.
But I have gone for the trio of Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit and Liam Brady. Vieira and Petit as a duo are probably the greatest pairing in premiership history as they supplemented each other extremely well. Whilst Brady, was just a genius with his left foot; and in my view, one of the best 5 players to have ever played for Arsenal.
Strikers
They have been a lot of fine strikers in Arsenal history like Tony Woodcock, Cliff Bastin, Ray Kennedy, Frank Stapleton, Alan Sunderland and Alan Smith.
But it will come as no surprise to Arsenal fans that I have selected Dennis Bergkamp(arsenal's best ever player in my opinion), Ian Wright and Thierry Henry (the most exciting player to have graced the premiership).
My favourite Arsenal team is difficult to say as all the ones that have won the Premiership with Wenger in charge have been brilliant to watch and it is difficult to separate them.
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