When Football Manager 2013 was released back in November 2012, Barcelona’s La Masia academy was at the height of its prestige.
Earlier that year, Pep Guardiola had fielded an entire XI of academy graduates. The likes of Xavi, Sergio Busquets and Gerard Pique played vital roles in Barcelona conquering the world, and there was a clamour to see who the next big things to emerge from the club would be.
Guardiola left Barcelona in the summer of 2012 and his former assistant Tito Vilanova was tasked with getting La Blaugrana back on their perch after Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid beat them to the La Liga title with a hundred-point tally. They had no shortage of promising youth prospects emerging to help bolster the first-team squad.
Leave a Reply