
This season may well be Robert Lewandowski’s last with Barcelona
“In Saturday’s 3-0 home win against Mallorca, seven of Barcelona’s starting XI were La Masia graduates. Barca’s philosophy has always been to promote as many players as possible from their famous youth academy, but in recent years the number of youngsters coming through to the senior side seems to have accelerated. In that La Liga victory at the weekend, you had Alejandro Balde, Pau Cubarsi and Eric Garcia in defence, and Marc Casado, Dani Olmo (who was at the club early in his youth career but moved to Dinamo Zagreb at 16 then re-signed from RB Leipzig in 2024) and Fermin Lopez in midfield. On the right wing, 18-year-old Lamine Yamal scored a brilliant goal as he passed 10,000 minutes of game time in a Barcelona first-team shirt — it was his 136th appearance since making his debut, aged 15, in April 2023. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)
NY Times/The Athletic: Fermin Lopez’s Barcelona glow up, and how the club almost lost him – twice

On November 25, 2012, Barca had 11 La Masia graduates on the pitch together
Daily Archives: February 13, 2026
ICE at the 2026 World Cup: Explaining the agency’s security role, fan concerns
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the controversial government agency known as ICE, will play a ‘key part’ in the 2026 World Cup’s ‘overall security apparatus,’ its acting director said Tuesday. And as his comments spread through soccer circles, via media, they reinforced concerns — but also got misrepresented and misunderstood. The director, Todd Lyons, specified that ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations arm would play the ‘key’ World Cup role. HSI is distinct and largely separate from ICE’s other arm, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). ERO is the arm that’s sparked controversy in Minneapolis and other communities. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
St Pauli plotting their next miracle in tantalising Bundesliga survival battle
Win against Stuttgart was a reminder that unity remains St Pauli’s greatest strength in defying the odds again.
“It had begun to look like a lost cause. In a season where the Bundesliga’s relegation battle increasingly promises a richness that the title race may lack (with all due respect to Borussia Dortmund’s efforts to stalk Bayern Munich at closer quarters in recent weeks), it has felt like St Pauli were, like fellow minnows Heidenheim, ready to be cut away. The Hamburg club’s best-ever start to a top-flight season, two wins and a draw from their first three games, felt like an age ago. Nine successive defeats will do that to you. Yet these masters of the unusual and the unexpected had another surprise up their sleeve this weekend; not least, one suspects, to themselves. Stuttgart travelled north on a fine run of form, sitting pretty in a Champions League spot and fresh from a week of qualifying for the DFB Pokal semi-finals, a trophy which they have every hope of retaining. …”
Guardian
