La Masia has been a conveyor belt for young talent in recent years, with a number of players progressing through the club’s academy and going on to become mainstays in the first team.
The proof is in the pudding, with the current first-team squad under Hansi Flick featuring the likes of Lamine Yamal, Gavi, Pau Cubarsi, Marc Bernal, Alejandro Balde, Marc Casado and Fermin Lopez, all of whom have come through the academy set-up.
While such first-team success stories are always remembered, there is also another side to the coin: young talents from the academy who leave Barça in search of regular game time and a first-team opportunity elsewhere.
A painful decision
One such player who left the club recently was Eman Kospo. The central defender left Barça last summer to join Fiorentina and admitted that walking away from La Masia was one of the hardest moments of his young career.
Speaking to SPORT, Kospo said: “It was very hard. I think it’s the hardest thing I’ve done so far, because when you play for a club with this history you don’t want to leave.
“For me it was a moment in which I thought a lot, because there was also a contract for a first team in Serie A and I felt that I had to take the next step. I spoke with Barça, I spoke with the other club and in the end I made the decision to go to that next level.”
Kospo made it clear that his two years at Barcelona meant a lot to him. He continued:
“I had two incredible years at Barça. Thank you, thank you for everything, because we also won everything that last year with the Juvenil and it was phenomenal. It was very hard, because as I said, you don’t want to leave a club with that history.
“But you don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. I will always be grateful to Barcelona for everything they did for me.”
The 19-year-old admitted that he was frustrated after being told that he would not get a chance with the first team and would have to do pre-season with Barça Atletic.
“When we had that historic year, I thought I could do the season with the first team. I was waiting for that, and when they called me, I think it was the director, they told me that I would do the preseason with Barça B.”
“I got a little frustrated because I understand that it is one of the strongest clubs in the world, but after that year and the support they had given me, I thought that I was going to do the pre-season with the first team and that I would have that opportunity.
“I talked to my father and said, ‘Look, I think I have to take the next step.’”
Barcelona pathway felt blocked
The centre-back also explained that Barça Atletic’s relegation influenced his thinking. He revealed:
“Barça B had gone down to the fourth division. For me that was a bit negative.”
Kospo added that he asked Barcelona for a new contract to give him security, but the club eventually said no.
He continued: “I had one more year on my contract and that always happens: you do the pre-season, you play three or four months and then you talk to the club about what to do: if they give you a new contract, if you leave.”
“In my head was: what do I do if I get injured and I’m out for six months? What do I do next? I only have a contract until 2026 and I’m not playing.”
“I spoke to Barcelona and told them that the most important thing for me was a new contract, to have that security. We talked about it for weeks and in the end they said no.”
All these factors must have played a role in the teenager choosing to leave Barça and move to Fiorentina to play in Italy.
Kospo played a key role in Barcelona’s historic Youth League-winning side under Juliano Belletti and was fair in thinking that he deserved a chance in the first team.
However, from the club’s perspective, not every talent can be fast-tracked. Last summer, Flick had a full first-team squad available for pre-season, which made Kospo’s chances of getting in even more difficult.
UEFA Youth League memories
Kospo played with a very talented group of players at Juvenil A, and he was asked who among them deserved to make the jump to the first team.
He said: “As we have already seen this year, Xavi Espart has played some games. Almost all the players were strong. I think everyone who played in the Youth League deserves to play for Barça, in the first team.
“I know, it’s not possible for everyone to go up, but of the ones I also saw at Barça B, Xavi Espart did well, Brian Farinas too, he was our number six and had an incredible year. Those players, for me, can play in the first team.”
The teenager also revisited his successful season under Belletti, speaking about how it felt to win the UEFA Youth League. He said:
“It is the strongest competition there is for the youth. I saw that the last time Barça won it was in 2015. We had a great team, also with Juliano Belletti as coach, very good.
“The most important thing for me was always the UEFA Youth League, but if you win the league first and then the Copa del Rey, you have more desire and you want to win it too.
“When we won against Stuttgart 2-1, for me that was the toughest game I played against Barça in the Youth League, because they were a physically strong team. Then in Switzerland, at home, we won against AZ Alkmaar 1-0, which was also a difficult game.
“And then came Trabzonspor, a team you didn’t expect in the final, but if you look at who they had beaten: Juventus, Atalanta, Inter, Salzburg… very strong teams. In the end beating them 4-1 was brutal.
“That feeling was the greatest I’ve experienced until today, because it’s the Champions League for the youth.”
The right decision in the end?
In Italy, the 19-year-old centre-back has grown from a highly rated Barça talent into a Serie A debutant and a senior international for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Had it not been for an injury at the end of the 2025/26 season, there is a good chance that Kospo would have received a World Cup call-up.
His words indicate that Kospo left with gratitude, not bitterness. In the end, it does look as though he has made the right call for his career at the moment, and if he develops into an elite talent, a reunion is always a possibility in the future.