La Masia’s Next Wave: 8 Barcelona Academy Stars Who Could Define the Future of Camp Nou

26 May, 2026 Devansh 0 Comments 1 category

By 90MinFootball | May 26, 2026

The La Masia pipeline has never looked healthier. Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsí, Marc Bernal — one by one, Barcelona’s academy keeps producing players who take the world by storm. But the story doesn’t end there. Below the first team, in the youth divisions and at Barça Atlètic, the next generation is quietly being shaped. These are the eight La Masia names you need to bookmark right now — before everyone else does.

1. Ebrima Tunkara — “The New Lamine Yamal”

Position: Winger (Left / Right) Age: 15 Nationality: Spanish (Gambian heritage)

If you ask people inside La Masia who the next superstar is, one name comes back more than any other: Ebrima Tunkara. The comparison they reach for — and they use it carefully, because comparisons are dangerous — is Lamine Yamal.

Watch Tunkara for five minutes and you understand why. He has the kind of natural talent that makes coaches stop training sessions to watch. His dribbling is instinctive, fluid and sharp. He changes pace in a way that bewilders older, bigger defenders who simply cannot compute his movement. He is playing Juvenil A (under-19 level) at 15 — and making it look comfortable.

What is particularly exciting is the range of his play. He can cut inside on either foot, deliver incisive passes into dangerous areas, and shoot powerfully — already netting four goals in ten league appearances this season. But it is the fearlessness that Barcelona prize most. He receives the ball in tight spaces without flinching. He plays the game as if he belongs at every level.

During a Spain Under-17 international break, Tunkara delivered two goals and an assist in two appearances. He has already debuted in the UEFA Youth League. And now, Barcelona have confirmed he will be part of Hansi Flick’s first-team preseason squad this coming July — the clearest signal possible about where this remarkable teenager is heading.

He has already made history as one of the youngest-ever players to debut for Barça Atlètic. The full journey is just beginning.

Style tag: Explosive, fearless, devastatingly direct. A left-footed winger who makes defending feel impossible.

2. Xavi Espart — Flick’s Favourite Who Is One Game Away

Position: Right Back Age: 18 Nationality: Spanish

Some players are just on the doorstep. Xavi Espart has spent the entire 2025-26 season knocking firmly on Hansi Flick’s door — and the Barcelona manager has made no secret of how highly he rates this teenager.

Espart started his development as a defensive midfielder, which explains so much about his game when you watch him at right back. He thinks like a midfielder. He reads the spaces in front of him, dictates from deep, and has the technical quality to combine in the tight central areas that typically eat right backs alive. When he goes forward, he brings the same intelligence — overlapping at the right moment, holding back when the timing is wrong.

Flick called him into first-team training sessions repeatedly this season. He was named in several matchday squads. A senior debut felt inevitable — but then a medial collateral ligament injury in his right knee arrived to frustrate everyone’s plans. He is currently sidelined and recovering, which is why those first senior minutes have not yet come.

When Espart returns, the question will not be whether he gets his Barcelona debut, but how quickly he makes the position his own.

Style tag: The Thinking Man’s Right Back. Starts as a midfielder, plays as a full back, understands the game like a veteran.

3. Pedro Rodriguez — The Midfield Brain Who Idolises Iniesta

Position: Central Midfielder (No.8 / No.6) Age: 17 Nationality: Spanish

The name Pedro Rodriguez carries history at Barcelona — and this version, currently lighting up Juvenil A, has big ambitions to justify carrying it. His football idol is Andrés Iniesta. His game, watching him, makes that choice of idol completely understandable.

Pedro is a midfielder built on intelligence. He is not the fastest player on the pitch. He is not the most physically imposing. But he understands football at a level that most teenagers simply do not reach. He reads the game two or three passes ahead, positioning himself to receive in pockets of space that other players have not yet identified. When he has the ball, he is calm, decisive and precise.

He can operate as an organising No.6 — shielding the defence, recycling possession, connecting defence to attack — or as a more dynamic No.8 who arrives in the box and gets on the scoresheet. In the UEFA Youth League this season, he delivered a goal and two assists in six appearances. Hansi Flick has noticed, with reports indicating the Barcelona manager has particularly positive feelings about what Pedro can become.

A Spain youth international, Pedro Rodriguez is the kind of intelligent, technically gifted midfielder that La Masia has always produced best. The pipeline has not lost its touch.

Style tag: The Iniesta Blueprint. Pure intelligence in midfield. Makes the difficult look elegant.

4. Sama Nomoko — Speed and Power Interrupted by Misfortune

Position: Right Winger Age: 17 Nationality: Spanish

There are few more painful stories in La Masia this season than Sama Nomoko’s. The 17-year-old had been one of the most talked-about young players at Barça Atlètic — and then a serious ACL knee injury arrived to steal twelve months of his development.

Before the injury, Nomoko was impossible to ignore. He had evolved from a goal-scoring centre-forward into a devastating right winger, his long strides and explosive pace causing defenders serious problems. In ten appearances for Barça Atlètic this season, he scored two goals and contributed three assists — numbers that reflected only a fraction of the damage he caused.

What makes Nomoko unusual in a La Masia system built on technical quality is his sheer physical dimension. He is powerful, dynamic, and difficult to dispossess when running at full speed. Barcelona spotted him at under-9 level in 2016 and have spent the years since developing that natural athleticism into a more complete footballer. The technical details have been refined. The physicality was always going to be impossible to teach.

He is out until 2027. But when he returns, expect Barcelona’s coaches to push him hard and fast. This is a talent they are not willing to lose.

Style tag: The Athletic Winger. Pure pace and power wrapped in La Masia technique. Devastating in transition.

5. David Moreno — The 14-Year-Old Genius Flick is Watching

Position: Central Midfielder / Attacking Midfielder Age: 14 Nationality: Spanish

Yes, 14. Barcelona’s generation of extraordinary talent just keeps getting younger. David Moreno is the name that keeps coming up in conversations about La Masia’s most exciting immediate prospects — and he won’t turn 15 until later this year.

Moreno is left-footed, which immediately gives him a different dimension in a La Masia system that has traditionally leaned on right-footed creators. He is creative in the truest sense — a midfielder who sees angles others miss, who dribbles not just to advance the ball but to unlock entire defensive structures, and who has the eye for goal that midfielders with a natural attacking instinct carry.

His reading of the game — for a player his age — is genuinely startling. He slows the game down in the right moments, accelerates when space opens, and makes decisions with a maturity that should not be possible from someone who has barely entered his teenage years. Hansi Flick has reportedly noted his development as a particular area of interest.

David Moreno is years away from the first team. But that is the point of this list — to introduce you before the story reaches its inevitable peak.

Style tag: The Prodigy. Left-footed creator with the vision of a veteran and the fearlessness of youth.

6. Baba Kourouma — The Defensive Wall Being Forged at La Masia

Position: Centre-Back Age: 15 Nationality: Spanish (Guinean heritage)

Every great Barcelona team needs a defensive foundation. Baba Kourouma is 15 years old, and the coaches who work with him believe he can be part of building that foundation for the next generation of Camp Nou football.

Kourouma is physically exceptional for his age — tall, strong, and composed under pressure. He brings the kind of aerial dominance that forces opposing attackers to rethink their approach, combined with a ground-level positional intelligence that suggests the hours on the training pitch are working exactly as they should.

What makes him a genuine La Masia product rather than simply a physical specimen is his comfort on the ball. He receives under pressure without panicking. He plays out from the back with the confidence that Barcelona’s system demands. He is, in essence, developing into exactly the kind of centre-back that Barcelona’s philosophy requires — a defender who can play as well as defend.

Barcelona have moved to secure his long-term future, which is the clearest possible statement of intent. He recently trained alongside the Barça Atlètic squad — a significant step at 15.

Style tag: The Modern Centre-Back in Development. Physical presence meets La Masia technical education.

7. Luca Pérez — The 16-Year-Old Centre-Back Knocking Loudly

Position: Centre-Back Age: 16 Nationality: Spanish

Signed from Damm in 2018, Luca Pérez has spent eight formative years inside La Masia — and the investment is showing clearly. The 16-year-old has developed into one of the most highly regarded defensive prospects at the academy, attracting attention from coaches and scouts who follow Spanish youth football closely.

Pérez brings height and physicality — qualities that immediately establish a physical presence in central defence. But the years inside La Masia have layered something equally important on top of those natural gifts: composure, reading of the game, and the technical confidence to play through the lines rather than simply hoofing the ball clear.

He is the kind of centre-back who makes good decisions under pressure — which, at youth level, where defensive errors often come from panic rather than lack of ability, is a more valuable quality than it sometimes gets credit for. Barcelona are watching his development closely, and his trajectory suggests more significant steps forward are coming.

Style tag: The Developed Defender. Eight years at La Masia have shaped a technically cultured centre-back from raw physical material.

8. Ajay Tavares — The Arrival from England Full of Promise

Position: Winger Age: 16 Nationality: British

One of the most interesting recent additions to La Masia is Ajay Tavares — a 16-year-old winger who chose Barcelona over the English football pathway, turning his back on Norwich City’s academy to pursue the La Masia education.

That choice tells you something important. When talented young players choose La Masia over established English clubs, it is because they believe something specific about what the Barcelona system will do for their development. Tavares clearly sees his future in a technical, possession-based environment — and by all early accounts, he has adapted quickly and impressively.

A winger with pace and directness, Tavares is still in the very early stages of his La Masia journey. But the decision to sign him and the impression he has made in initial training sessions suggests Barcelona see genuine long-term potential in a player who brings something slightly different to their academy winger profile.

He is one to track carefully over the next two to three seasons.

Style tag: The English Experiment. Directness and pace from a player choosing the La Masia way over the Premier League pathway.

The Ones Who Already Made It — Proof the Pipeline Works

Before we close, it is worth pausing to note what happened to some names from previous La Masia watch lists. Marc Bernal — once the most exciting prospect in this academy — has now established himself in Barcelona’s first team, making appearances in La Liga and the Champions League. Pedro Fernández ‘Dro’ and Jofre Torrents have already had their first-team tastes this season.

That is the La Masia story. The players we watch in youth football today are the first-teamers of tomorrow. The eight names above are somewhere on that journey. Some will reach the destination sooner than expected. Others will take a longer road.

But the academy that produced Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Yamal and Cubarsí is not finished producing greatness. It is just getting started on the next chapter.

Sources:

Category: La Liga