Nils Mortimer spent almost a decade in La Masía, where he was a promising young player that got to play three friendly matches with the first team, right after Leo Messi’s departure, in 2021. Mortimer discussed his time at Barça’s youth system, which he remembers fondly, in a recent interview with Flashscore, Blaugranagram’s partner.
Being from Málaga, in southern Spain, it was a big change for him to move to Barcelona when he was 12, however, “Barça is incredibly family-oriented; when you’re there, you don’t even realize you’re at what, for me, is the best club in the world, and normalizing that makes it very easy. The difficult part is when you leave there, leave the bubble, and realize that not everything is so easy, that football life is a lot harder outside the club.”
Mortimer explains that the atmosphere in La Masía is very healthy, even though everyone there fights for a few spots in the first team.”, I’m sure there have been unhealthily envious people, but I don’t recall ever seeing a bad look or a rude gesture towards anyone. When I was there, it was when everything happened with Ansu, for example, when he moved up to the first team, and nobody ever gave him a hard time; on the contrary, since we’ve always grown up together since we were 12, seeing a friend fulfilling his dream, and your dream too, is a source of pride.”
About the preseason he had with Koeman’s Barça, Nils Mortimer talks with pride and joy, “I remember it as something really wonderful. You live with Piqué, with Jordi Alba, and with people you see as idols, and suddenly you’re training with them.”
