La Masia has produced some of the greatest talents of a generation, but Xavi will always remember one player who slipped through the net.
Barcelona’s academy has become shrouded by a cloud of mysticism over the past two decades, having produced a number of genius footballing hobbits, namely Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi – slightly-built rugrats who have terrorised the lumbering giants of world football with unparalleled success.
In an interview with French outlet So Foot in 2018, Xavi labelled Iniesta, his midfielder partner in crime for 13 years, a “special case”. “He has an unusual talent, he could not fail, impossible,” he said.
That is not always the case at La Masia, however.
“There was another Iniesta at Barca,” Xavi added. “I will always remember his name: Mario Rosas. If you saw how he played at 15, 16 or 17, you would say, ‘When this guy makes the first team, the Camp Nou will hallucinate.’
“He was a mixture of Laudrup and Messi, for real. He played with two feet, dribbled, was competitive. He had it all, but he got lost. It shocked me. Maybe he was not professional enough or didn’t have a strong mentality, we will never know.”
If the fantasy of a Laudrup-Messi hybrid is almost too good to be true, the lack of footage of Rosas in action only makes the player’s promise more alluring. In your mind, the idea greatest album you’ve never heard is almost certainly more seductive than the reality of the greatest album you have heard.
Search for Mario Rosas on YouTube and you are only presented with numerous videos of a namesake who plays the accordion. Searching Twitter is equally fruitless. There are only a few pictures on Google of Rosas in the Barcelona academy, usually accompanied by Xavi.
So, with nothing in English written about Rosas online, here’s what we do know about the player, courtesy of some sketchy translations:
– The same age as Xavi, Rosas was born in Malaga and joined Barcelona in 1994, aged 14.
– At 5ft 5”, he was very much the prototype for the Spanish midfielder which has become so successful over the past 10 years. As well as Xavi and Iniesta, think Santi Cazorla, David Silva, Thiago Alcantara etc.
– On the last day of the 1997-98 season, at the age of 17, Rosas was handed his first-team debut by Louis van Gaal, lining up alongside the likes of Luis Figo with Barcelona already crowned champions. But his day was spoiled by another Portugal hero, Pauleta, who scored twice as…
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