Views jump 9.7x the channel's usual pace

Joe Thomlinson imagines Messi and Yamal in an all-academy Barcelona

His La Masia selection is approaching a million views, with Sporting and Real Madrid also getting the homegrown-team treatment.

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Joe Thomlinson Story of October 22, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The whole channel is running at 1,086,038 views a day, 9.7 times a normal day (112,039).

Lionel Messi, Lamine Yamal and Gavi are among the names Joe Thomlinson brings into a Barcelona thought experiment: what could the club field if it had kept all its academy talent?

The appeal is the reunion that real transfer windows don't allow. Rather than choosing signings, Thomlinson builds from La Masia products, bringing different generations into the same hypothetical lineup. His Barcelona upload has reached nearly a million views since its October 19 release, standing well apart from the other recent uploads on his channel.

That comes as the channel's daily views rise to almost ten times their usual pace. The Barcelona video's cumulative total doesn't tell us how much of that day's jump it supplied, but it is the conspicuous recent entry.

The academy exercise has become a recurring format. Thomlinson's Sporting CP selection includes Cristiano Ronaldo, Rafael Leão and Nuno Mendes; his newer Real Madrid edition turns to La Fábrica products, including Achraf Hakimi and Marcos Llorente. Between those imaginary reunions sits a different kind of squad-building exercise: assessing January transfer possibilities for Manchester United.

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