Barcelona’s have unveiled their new away kit for the 2019/20 season and the Spanish champions are celebrating the 40th anniversary of La Masia with a throwback shirt.
Without the La Masia youth academy Barcelona wouldn’t be anywhere near as successful as they’ve been in the modern era, with greats like Lionel Messi, Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Gerard Pique all coming through.
So it’s no surprise the club want to pay tribute to its legendary academy. In recognition of 40 years of La Masia the team will wear a kit that’s a throwback to the one they wore in 1979.
Talking to kit manufacturer Nike current Barcelona player Sergio Roberto, one of the La Masia academy product current first teamers, said, “It is not an accident that La Masia has given the world so many great players.
“It is a special place with a unique philosophy and I am pleased this new away kit highlights the academy. Forty years of work at La Masia really is something worth celebrating.”
Pete Hoppins, Nike Football Apparel Senior Design Director talked about the dual reason for the kit, explaining, “Barça’s away kit from ’79 is a cult classic and with us wanting to pay homage to La Masia, it made perfect sense to use a kit from its founding year as the starting point.
“What you get is this beautiful vintage Barça design merged with all the benefits of modern technology. La Masia has produced so many iconic players and it remains an honor to produce kits for them.”
And you can’t really argue that it’s a beautiful design.
As well as Roberto the first team still has Messi, Pique, Busquets and Jordi Alba however they haven’t produced as many players in recent years.
There were recent reports in Spain that there are currently a lot of problems with the academy set up in Barcelona and the club have spend a lot of money on big name signings in recent years, rather than use academy players.
