A trainer steeped in the culture of Barcelona says that high-quality coaching in Bermuda could lead to the next Lionel Messi being found on island.

Bernat Franquesa is cofounder of Football Concepts with Albert Puig, who for 20 years was technical director of Barcelona’s famous La Masia, the academy in which Lionel Messi’s talent was nurtured.

Now based in the United States, Franquesa is in Bermuda to lead a number of sessions and he insists that training coaches this week is just as important as training players if you want to find the next world superstar.

“If you want to have a Messi here the first thing you must do is not destroy him or her,” Franquesa said.

“Believe me, that happens a lot. Many players are born with great talent but coaches and parents can destroy them and their chance of making it.

“For example, if you have a daughter who paints well, you have to buy her colours and papers so she paints more. But the mistake often made is you find the kid who paints so well but you don’t buy her colours and papers, you make her do French classes because you want to try to make her good at many things.

“The same is true in football and If you have a kid here in Bermuda who is like Messi and really good at dribbling, don’t teach them passing. Let him dribble and make mistakes because if he does something good naturally he will do it much better as he gets older.

“When you have a young player and he is particularly good at something, let him do it more and when he is 14 he can be taught when to do it and when not to do it. Bermuda can have its own Messi but you will only ever find him with good coaches and good teachers.”

Franquesa comes from a family synonymous with Barcelona. His brother spent 14 years at the club and now plays in La Liga, while his dad was vice-president of the Catalan giants. But his professional dream died at the age of 14 as a result of a heart condition, and he has now been coaching for 16 years despite being only 31 now.

“At the age of 14, I could not continue playing as I had a heart issue, so the club I was with at the time gave me a chance to start coaching the 7-year-olds when I was 14.

“I’m still young, but I started coaching really young and in my early twenties I was coaching at Barcelona. When I was 24 I moved to the US, started my programme and started travelling the world with clinics for coaches and players.

“The area where I am from, Catalonia, has the biggest pool of football talent in the world with players playing in La Liga, the Premier League and all over the world. It’s not because we eat a different type of tomato than you have here, it’s because we have good teachers.”

Franquesa got his first look at young Bermuda players on Tuesday morning and within minutes provided an assessment of their abilities.

“The first impression is that they are good individually and the athleticism and physicality is there,” he said.

“I have a feeling that all the players when the ball is near they are on, but the problem is when the ball is far they are off. This is the biggest mistake you can make in football and it is also the most difficult to correct.

“The great players are the ones that understand the game with and without the ball, that is what makes the difference.

“Trying to create good habits is the start and that is the goal of this camp. Obviously you can’t create habits in five days, but we will try to tell them what should be done and let them take it on.”

The camp this week has been arranged by assistant national coach Kenny Thompson with 46 players and 11 coaches being taught in morning and afternoon sessions. Franquesa feels that top-quality training time is crucial, especially in the US and Europe, and underlined the reason why.

“There are two ways to learn football,” he said.

“One is just time and you see that in Africa and South America, in places where there is minimal schooling and the children are in the streets playing football every day; they are learning in a natural way.

“The places where there is more structure to the day such as Europe, the US and of course Bermuda, the only way to learn is through good teachers because the children have minimal time because of school and other projects.

“You don’t have the same amount of time with the ball as children in South America and Africa so you need good teachers. We have changed things a lot in the US. When I first went eight years ago it was a disaster and they were 40 years behind but now in California, where I am, our project has helped them to catch up.

“There are now really good teachers there taking it to the next level and it’s only through teachers that you can change the things you need to change to generate success.”