Pau Cubarsí helps drive Barcelona’s Champions League push as academy stars shine

Barcelona’s Champions League push is being fuelled by pau cubarsí and fellow La Masia graduates as the club prepares to face Atletico Madrid in the quarter-finals this week. The focus has shifted to how a young core has helped deliver results, after Barcelona made history in the round of 16 with a 7-2 second-leg home win over Newcastle. The match also underlined why pau cubarsí has become part of the wider conversation around Barcelona’s current surge.

La Masia impact is impossible to ignore

Barcelona reached this stage with their youngest knockout team on record, with an average age of 25 years and 18 days after five La Masia players were included. Alongside pau cubarsí, Lamine Yamal and Marc Bernal were among those who started, while Xavi Espart also featured from the bench. That selection moved Barcelona past Ajax for the most starts given to teenagers in Champions League knockout matches.

The broader academy picture is even stronger. Together with Yamal, Cubarsi, Bernal and others including Fermin Lopez, Gavi and Eric Garcia, Espart is one of 14 academy players to feature at senior level this season. A CIES Football Observatory study in January also found that Barcelona’s under-contract academy graduates had a transfer value nearly three times higher than any other club’s in the world.

Garcia Pimienta sees a club shaped by its own pathway

Xavi Garcia Pimienta, who spent 17 years coaching in Barcelona’s academy and won the UEFA Youth League with the club’s U19s in 2018, said he feels closely connected to the current first-team picture. “I feel very connected to the fact Barcelona has so many homegrown players in the first team right now, ” he said. “It’s an honour for me because I’ve been part of that process too, both as a player and a coach. ”

He added that the players are showing the standard associated with the club’s football identity, one he linked to Johan Cruyff’s influence. “There is a before and after Cruyff, ” Garcia Pimienta said, adding that Cruyff’s methods were established across the club at every level.

That perspective matters because Barcelona’s current momentum is not being built only on individual talent, but on a system that continues to promote players who already understand the demands of the first team. In that sense, pau cubarsí is part of a broader pattern rather than an isolated success story.

Rakitic praises the academy and urges caution

Former Barcelona midfielder Ivan Rakitic also praised the club’s youth pathway and said the current squad shows what it means to build from within. He said it is “amazing” that Barcelona can field a starting eleven made up of homegrown players, adding: “That’s what happiness is. That’s what Barça is all about. ”

Rakitic said the academy gives young players a clear route into the senior side, with children entering the club at nine, ten, or eleven and aiming for the first team by 18 or 19. He also warned against looking too far ahead in Europe, saying Barcelona must focus on each game and learn from last season’s mistakes.

What comes next for Barcelona

Barcelona now turn to Atletico Madrid in the quarter-finals, with the first leg set for Wednesday at Camp Nou. The club’s recent form has created real belief, but the next test will show whether this generation can keep matching the expectations placed on them. For now, pau cubarsí remains one of the clearest symbols of how Barcelona’s academy continues to shape the club’s Champions League ambitions.