The Barça Academies manager Benny Megreli and sporting director Sergi Barjuan have travelled to Japan to visit the Club's Barça Academies in the country and to see how they operate.

The trip began in Fukuoka, where they were met by Ryosuke Shojima, vice-governor of Fukuoka Prefecture, with potential collaborations between Barça and the local government regarding playing football discussed. The blaugranes also saw some of the academy childrens' training sessions and games, as well as meeting families, which ended up with the former blaugrana player signing autographs and having pictures taken. Despite the tight schedule, there was still time for some training sessions with local coaches to show them FC Barcelona's proprietary system.

Nara, second stop on the trip

The second stop on the trip was Nara, where the academy players' progress was observed during training at the local centre, and Megreli and Barjuan watched different games between the Barça Academy teams. Just like in Fukuoka, they were received by governor Makoto Yamashita, who was thanked for his hospitality and for making it possible to continue educating young Japanese footballers.

Official opening of Barça Academy Aichi

With no time to rest, the blaugranes travelled to Aichi for the official opening of the newest Barça Academy. Although the academy began operating a few months ago, the trip was a good opportunity to perform an official inaugural act. The mayor of Nishin where the academy is located visited to see the work Barça is doing with children who want to play football in a style that is renowned worldwide.

Great days in Katsushika with lots of institutional activities

The blaugranes spent three very intense days at Barça's centre in Katsushika from both a sporting and institutional aspect. The Barça Academies sporting director shared technical ideas with local coaches to continue developing the project. In this sense, both coaches and players received training on how to improve technical and tactical aspects for the Junior Youth teams (U13, U14 and U15) and the other Barça Academy Katsushika U5 to U12 teams. 

On the institutional side, the Katsushika Council were visited, where the blagranes were received by the city's mayor, Mr Aoki Katsusnori, and some of the city councillors. Spanish ambassador Fidel Sendagorta also made a space in his agenda to greet the blaugrana party.

Yokohama, final call of a non-stop trip

Yokohama was the final Barça Academy to be visited. Sergi Barjuan took part in the training sessions for the different Barça Academy sides and was very attentive of how the different players were progressing in order to help them improve on the details noticed by the current Barça Academy sporting director and former blaugrana player. A training session was also held for local coaches to ensure the Barça style continues to endure among the youngest members of Barça Academy Yokohama.