“La Masia has shown throughout Barcelona’s history that it is the quickest and safest way to create ready-made players for the club — and it’s been forgotten sometimes,” they said.

In the aftermath of the Blaugrana’s 2-1 UCL triumph over Inter Milan in December, a first ever at the San Siro, official social media accounts were awash with the “Made in La Masia” slogan.

For all the bright-eyed self promotion and talk of “Made in La Masia”, FC Barcelona sometimes have a funny way of showing that they are proud of their world-famous academy and trust the fruits ...