Future US star De la Fuente may turn his back on Barca

For the better part of 40 years, Barcelona's fabled La Masia academy has operated at a level unmatched by any other.

The Barca youth system has developed players at a historic rate, producing the likes of Andres Iniesta, Xavi, Pep Guardiola, Lionel Messi, Carles Puyol, Sergio Busquets in recent decades. Legends of the game have started their careers on those Catalan fields, learning an ethos and a culture that would come to define several different eras and many title-winning teams.

Konrad de la Fuente is not the first American to call La Masia home. That title belongs to Ben Lederman, whose seven-year stay at Barca was derailed by the club's youth transfer ban in 2014. But De la Fuente could very well become the first American to reach the senior ranks at Camp Nou and represent a club that remains,l arguably, the biggest in the world.

That, however, will depend on if the club can keep hold of the talented teenager in the months to come.

Born in Miami to Haitian parents, De la Fuente moved to Barcelona at the age of 10 when his father took a job at the Haitian embassy in Spain. Shortly after, the forward was discovered while playing for local side CF Damm and offered a chance to join the Blaugrana.

It is a chance afforded to few players, but one coveted by virtually every youngster that has ever kicked a ball. At La Masia, De la Fuente has been given a footballing education unlike any in the world, all while growing up in close proximity to a rotating cast of legendary figures, including perhaps the greatest to ever play the game.

"It was a dream," De la Fuente told ESPN in May. "Every weekend I would be watching Ronaldinho, he was my idol. At the time he was playing at Barca. I was like, 'Man, I would wanna get there', you know? I have always dreamed and worked hard since I was a little kid to make it come true.

"Once we came here, I always knew that this was a great opportunity for me to get scouted. I knew they had scouts all over the place. It was just a matter of me playing well and them seeing me. I'm glad I got the chance."

While he has spent his formative years outside of the United States, the 18-year-old starlet has been fast-tracked within the U.S. youth teams. He was a member of the U.S. Under-18s squad as a 16-year-old before making a leap to U20 level in 2019, representing his country at the U20 World Cup last summer.

De la Fuente was the only 17-year-old on Tab Ramos' roster, and he started all five matches before a quarter-final loss to Ecuador.

“Konrad is special,” former U.S. U18s head coach Omid Namazi told American Soccer Now in the summer of 2019. “He is very dynamic with the ball at his feet where he can run at defenders and create goalscoring opportunities for himself. But he is also clever enough to be able to find that final pass to create for others.

"I used him mostly as a centre-forward and he was quite good there, but I think he is best utilised as a winger or off the forward in a 4-4-2."

Since joining Barcelona as a 12-year-old, the now-18-year-old winger has steadily progressed through the Barcelona youth teams while emerging as a dynamic young attacker. To date, he has primarily featured for Barcelona's U19s, but has earned a pair of appearances for Barcelona B in the third tier of Spanish football.

Along the way, a roadmap had been developed, with Patrick Kluivert, the legendary Dutch striker who is now head of Barcelona's academy, having taken a liking to the young American attacker. With his contract set to expire this summer, the plan has been to have De la Fuente re-sign before making the leap to Barcelona B permanently. After that, it would be up to the winger to then take the massive jump required to earn a first-team berth.