When you think of footballers’ houses, you probably think of luxury, extravagance and an array of things that nobody could possibly need.
Lionel Messi’s house in Castelldefels, a town on the outskirts of Barcelona where he lived when he played for the club, reportedly had two swimming pools, a football pitch and a playground. Gerard Pique’s mansion in Esplugues, in the city’s suburbs, had five floors and a tennis court.
Last July, in an interview with GQ magazine, Lamine Yamal was asked what the best thing was about where he lived. “My bedroom is just two minutes away from the Barcelona dressing room and I don’t need too much time to get there,” he said.
Yamal, 17, is now a global icon after breaking through with Barca and helping Spain win the European Championship in Germany this summer. But until very recently the teenager lived in what is essentially student accommodation at La Masia — Barcelona’s renowned youth academy.
Pau Cubarsi, the Barca centre-back who is the same age as Yamal, still lives there. It has not worked out too badly for either of them — Yamal has 10 goal involvements (five goals, five assists) in all competitions this season, while Cubarsi is an undisputed starter at the back for Hansi Flick’s side.
Not that they receive any special treatment. At the end of each Barca game at their temporary home, the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys, Yamal and Cubarsi have had to make sure they don’t miss the car that drives them back to the club’s training facilities, where they greet the 24-hour concierge at the doors of La Masia before heading to bed.
“That might sound incredible to some who are not familiar with Barcelona and how the club is,” says a source close to the first team, who asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships. “But living in La Masia has been totally instrumental to these kids’ breakout success.”
Yamal and Cubarsi live in the latest version of La Masia — a modern set of buildings inside Barcelona’s Joan Gamper training complex that was opened in 2011. Before that, players from the youth ranks would live in a building next to the Camp Nou that gave the academy its name (the Catalan word ‘masia’ is usually translated as ‘farmhouse’ — a better catch-all description might be a rural dwelling particular to the east of Spain, including Catalonia).
Some players would even stay in bedrooms built inside Barca’s stadium, before the club outgrew its original academy facilities and needed to move out. Now La Masia provides accommodation for more than 80 athletes across Barcelona’s youth ranks — including from other sporting disciplines such as basketball and handball.
“La Masia is extraordinary,” says Jordi Roura, who was director of the academy from 2014 to 2021. “There are many residences, but it’s difficult to find another one like La Masia.”
Roura played for Barca as a kid and used to live in club accommodation, sharing a room and becoming best friends with future managers Pep Guardiola and Tito Vilanova. He was also part of both coaches’ backroom staff during their time with the first team.
“It has changed a lot from my days, everything was built to get the best out of the players,” Roura adds. “There are multiple floors with rooms. The youngest kids are the ones who are in bigger rooms and share with up to five more team-mates. There are also four-people rooms and two-people rooms. Eventually, we also set up single rooms.”
All food and meals are provided by the club, with players eating in a shared canteen. La Masia has a high school inside the facilities, where Barca can closely monitor and make sure players complete their compulsory studies. During the Euros in Germany, Yamal passed his ESO exams, the Spanish equivalent to GCSE exams in the UK or a U.S. high school diploma.
“The actual building where players live is literally minutes away from where the first team and the biggest stars train, which strengthens the bond with the club and makes the player feel that they could be there one day,” says Roura.
But La Masia has limited capacity. It was traditionally used for athletes who really needed it: those from abroad or from outside Catalonia who may not have been able to leave their hometown and join the club without it.
Yamal and Cubarsi are exceptions. They did not move to La Masia when they joined Barcelona, but they still ended up there.
Yamal had a sometimes tough upbringing between the city of Granollers, where his mother Sheila Ebana lived, and the town of Mataro, both around a 40-minute drive to the north-east of Barcelona. He didn’t always have an easy way to get to training sessions or weekend games and his father, Mounir Nasraoui, would have to take him on public transport because he didn’t have a driving licence. At other times, Yamal’s coaches would offer to pick him up and drive him to the facilities.
Barca were certain they had a star on their hands when Yamal turned 12, so they spoke to his family and offered him the chance to move to La Masia.
“The club became aware of Lamine’s situation and as soon as that was evident he was offered a spot to live in La Masia,” a source close to Yamal says. “It allowed him to have an easier life. It was easier to get to school, easier to go to train and easier to focus on the things a kid should be focused on.”
Cubarsi’s reasons for moving were logistical. Estanyol, the tiny town where his family are from, is almost 70 miles from the training complex. As he made his way up the ranks, keeping up with his team’s trips as well as his studies became more difficult. La Masia was the perfect solution.
“Having two kids in Yamal and Cubarsi who’ve managed to establish themselves with Barcelona and Spain while still living here sets a great example to the rest of the young talents,” says Roura.
Things have changed for Yamal and Cubarsi in the past few months.
Cubarsi still lives at La Masia, but Yamal decided to move out as he takes his career to new levels. He’s bought an apartment in Sant Joan Despi, a short drive from Barca’s training ground.
But his daily routine isn’t too different — he has to report to club facilities each morning before training and there he has breakfast. After that day’s training session, Barcelona players have lunch there too, so the club’s nutritionists can monitor their meals. That all means that Yamal spends most of his day at the site.
According to those close to the winger, his new place allows him to have more of a private life and somewhere he can switch off from football. His cousin Mohamed, who is also Yamal’s personal driver, spends practically every day with him and takes him to training.
Despite the move, Yamal’s camp insist his lifestyle has not changed much. But it is hard to escape the impact Euro 2024 had for a teenager who was able to use public transport without being recognised a year and a half ago.
Last month, a 17-year-old Spanish boy with a passing resemblance for Yamal went viral on social media. He recorded himself walking out of Barca’s official store, which led to dozens of people surrounding him asking for pictures. The local authorities were forced to intervene to escort the teenager away.
Yamal was far from impressed after seeing that incident on social media, but it is just one example of the price he has had to pay for his rise to stardom — which might not have happened so quickly without living at La Masia.
There is a lesson there for anyone who wants to be in charge of the club in the near future: nothing contributes to the Barca brand like the path taken by youngsters such as Yamal and Cubarsi.
(Top photo: Getty Images. Visual design by Kelsea Petersen)
