 Barcelona have been known for a lot of negative things over the past few years. Barcelona crashing out of the Champions League. President Bartomeu has been arrested today. Why did Barcelona, over 17 years, pay a referee 7.4 million pounds? But from underneath all of that noise came some of the most talented players in the world. However, all of Barcelona's struggles would force each one of these boys to the brink of their abilities. And they would all crumble. But today, there stands a player with more potential than any of his predecessors. Who, when he stepped on the pitch at this moment, set a ball rolling that could either destroy the club forever or lead it to salvation. And thank you to Classic Football Shirts for sponsoring this video. If you want any fan merch, use code RL10 and our affiliate link down below to grab yourself 10% off and help the channel out as well. La Mena Moll was born in Raca Fondo, Spain on the 13th of July, 2007. Though he would never play organized football for his local team, joining La Masiette, seven years old, his little town lives in him still. As this celebration pays homage to the streets he grew up kicking a ball around and that still holds most of his family today. But it wasn't in that town where his journey began. At three years old, his parents separated. And he moved with his mother to a town not too far away where he would meet a man nicknamed Kubala who would encourage Lameen's mother to sign him up for football. From then on, Kubala, who is as much of a cule as any of us, would tell Lameen that one day Barcelona would come sign him. And he was right. It only took a single scout a few minutes of watching Lameen to notice the youngsters' brilliance. And he was scooped up by Barcelona in 2014. But though his youth talent was recognized, Lameen was never the one to flaunt it. His youth coaches remember him as respectful, humble, and not very talkative to anyone but his teammates. Sounds to me a lot like a diminutive player who had come through La Masiette a decade before. Lameen let his play speak for itself, and it did. After arriving at Barcelona in 2014, Lameen would go on to score 56 goals in 30 games for the club in just his second year there. But according to his coaches, as reported by ESPN, though he started off more talented than both his teammates and his opponents, what surprised people the most was that his ability never balanced out with everyone else's. As they got bigger, faster, and smarter, Lameen got even bigger, even faster, and even smarter. Many players that excel at early ages tend to taper off, but not Lameen. With each coming year, he stood out more and more. By 2019, at 12 years old, Lameen continued to fly high with Barcelona, snapping this picture with Messi. But at the same time this picture was being taken, there was another young Barcelona player who was grabbing all of the headlines. But Anzufati is able to change the pace of the game, change the rhythm, like Messi is capable of. We saw Anzufati become the youngest goal scorer ever for Spain. Everything you're hearing about Lameenumol and all the records he's breaking, well, basically all of those records were first broken by Anzufati. That's what Anzufati brought to Barcelona in a year where they desperately needed them. In his first season, he scored seven goals on an XG of 3.8 in 1,000 minutes played. At just 17 years old, Anzufati was the most clinical player in a squad with Antoine Griezmann, Luis Suarez, and Lionel Messi. But that clinicality would be one of the main players in the fall of Anzufati. Anzufati provided Barcelona with something they desperately needed, important goals at important times. He would create and finish chances that no one else could have imagined anyone doing, let alone a 17-year-old, but they needed him too badly and that took a toll on Anzufati. He had never really been injury resistant. Even before he would make a significant impact on the squad, he missed some time out due to injury. So it's clear that he needed to be watched carefully. But as the season went on, Barça became more and more desperate and pushed Anzufati a bit too far. Though no significant injuries would come calling in his first season, the knocks were there, and they would come calling at the beginning of the 2020-2021 season. Since then, he hasn't been the same. And though he would even come back for a few games to create some false hope that Anzufati was back, he would fall again. However, the recurring issue with Barcelona is that they wouldn't learn from Anzufati's injury. Pedri, every time he touched the ball, he seemed the calmest guy on the field and for a young man like Pedri to be caring himself like that, that tells you everything that you need to know about him as a player. Pedri's injuries have been entirely his manager's faults. After playing 36 games in the Spanish 2nd Division with Las Palmas at 16, he moved immediately to Barcelona, where he would play in the most matches of any teenager in top-flight football in at least the past 20 years, 73 matches. La Liga, the Champions League, the Copa del Rey, the Euros, the Olympics, and more. Pedri was being passed around like PSG's money, and it makes sense. He was one of the most promising players in Europe, touted to be the best midfielder in the world, the next coming of Iniesta. He was brilliant, but unlike Anzu, he never really showed any signs of injury. His body was tough, and because of Kumin and Luis de la Fuente, he had become a battle-hardened veteran at just 18 years old. In just a few weeks into the next season, that injury would come calling. That would poison him for the remainder of his career. Pedri cannot stay healthy anymore because Barcelona were not able to resist using and abusing him, taking him for everything he had because they were so desperate and losing, so they needed to field what they thought was their best team or else. And yet again, they would not learn their lesson. There's something about a young player going out there and playing as freely as Gavi did today that is just fantastic to watch. He had always been a fighter. He came into this Barcelona squad when they desperately needed one. The team was very soft in every position, and without a ball winner, they would struggle, so they threw on a 16-year-old bulldog who went by the name of Gavi, and the rest is history. He would be paramount to every single win that Barcelona would have for the next two years. Putting everything on the line for the team. From August 2021 to November 2023, Gavi started nearly every single La Liga match for Barcelona. At the beginning of this season, Gavi looks to be one of the best midfielders in the world, locking down Jude Bellingham and looking like the guy that he had always been praised for, but that people didn't really see all of the time. But his best was back, and yet it wouldn't last long. After two years of nonstop football, Gavi would tear his ACL in a meaningless game for Spain, yet again showing that Barcelona youngsters are cursed, seemingly never being able to stay healthy and live up to their true potential on the pitch. But if you want to look like they do when they're healthy, check out today's sponsor classic football shirts where you can find tons of new and classic kits or fan-tees like this one. So make sure to use our affiliate link down below in the code RL10 to support the channel and grab yourself 10% off. The reason that I believe Luminumol will be the one to break this curse, to upset the flow of Barcelona's incredible talent pool getting badly injured due to the team's negligence is because the squad does not desperately need Luminumol right now. For once in several years, Barcelona seem to be kind of blessed in the position that their most talented youngster is coming up in. And even though Rafinha, Ferrantores, and Joao Félix are far from perfect, they offer a lot of value, even if that value just comes in the form of taking pressure off and game time away from a 16-year-old. Luminumol is special, and I'm not denying that, but he isn't exactly what Barcelona need right now the way that Anzu, Pedri, and then Gavi were. Their profiles were desperately needed when they were coming up, so they were taken for all that they had by a club that had been struggling for a half decade. But today, Barcelona desperately need a winger who is prolific at ball progression, someone who can act as an outlet and pin the opponent's fullbacks back to both ease the pressure off Barcelona's defense and offer a lethal option on the counter. Luminumol is not that yet. He has shown that he gets nervous when players are chasing him down from behind. And though he seems capable of beating just about anyone in a one-on-one, he isn't amazing at beating players with pace. Not to say that he can't get there, and I actually think he's improving when it comes to ball carrying, but I think Chavi will feel less pressure to play him than he did with Gavi and that Koumin did with Pedri. And I would absolutely hope that he has taken a look at what's happened with our best players when you play them too much and he takes, he's already played a thousand minutes in La Liga while being younger than anyone else that I've already mentioned. So we must continue to put very little pressure on this kid's shoulders and just appreciate the small things that he does. However, if Barcelona do not give him time to rest, I'm worried it could spell the end of La Masia and effectively the downfall of Barcelona as we know it. See, Barcelona today is nowhere near where it was at its peak, which means kids are probably running to be Barcelona fans a little bit slower than they were back in the day. This makes me imagine that future stars are gonna be less interested in joining Barcelona or willing to join Barcelona for less money than they are right now. Because if they didn't grow up with a stellar Barcelona, I can imagine it feeling less appealing to them. Not only may there be less interest in Barcelona in the future already, but if these young talented players begin to see that, oh, all the young talented players that come out of Barcelona and play for Barcelona get hurt immediately and never live up to their potential, well, I can see that being a little bit of a turnoff for them for going to La Masia. I genuinely believe that could have a major effect on the recruiting for La Masia and therefore the entire dynamic of the Barcelona squad would have to change. So I think it would be very important for the club to show that they can properly foster the improvement and growth of a talented player like La Menya Maul. His development is incredibly crucial to this team's future. I don't care if benching La Menya Maul cost Barcelona a match or two this season. If it means we can have a healthy player for years to come. There is still a lot of football to be played this season and therefore a lot of time before he can get injured. So he better be monitored very carefully and treated like a baby. And honestly, relative to the opposition players and even some of our players, he basically is a baby. But since we heard so much about Pedru today, slide on over to this video where you can learn basically all there is to learn about the season that poisoned him. Thank you all for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.