Graham Hunter has been overdoing the paella a bit
Ridiculous VAR intervention to chalk off Rudiger’s header on the stroke of halftime
Jesus, now there’s an awful wanker.
A lovely Asensio left-foot curler from the corner of the box and a more typical Vini Jnr sprint through and finish has Real two up
Can someone do the honours?
When you enter Real Madrid’s Valdebebas academy complex, the first door you face is the dressing room for the club’s youngest age group, the under-fives.
This is the first step towards Madrid’s first team — and that’s what they wanted to reflect in the architecture of their training ground. There are 11 football pitches — as well as the Alfredo Di Stefano stadium — and numerous buildings through which a player must progress, until they hopefully, one day, reach the Santiago Bernabeu.
The road is long and a little winding because, as Madrid’s coaches try to explain to their pupils, it gets tougher and tougher. This is especially true when young hopefuls go from the so-called “low cantera”, where they play up to the age of 13 and where yellow covers the dressing room walls, to the “high cantera” painted in blue.
Across each age group and across the male and female sections, there are 364 players enrolled here, 12.7km from the centre of the Spanish capital, and there are plans for expansion. Real Madrid’s accounts for 2021-22 show a yearly outlay of almost €25million (£22m; $27m) to keep it all going. Those same accounts show the sum of €36m (£39m) under another heading: “income from academy activities”.
This place does good business for Madrid. Look at the income from youth player sales over the past 10 years and you will see they brought in €330.5m. In the most recent summer transfer window of 2022, the club made €15m with the departures of Borja Mayoral (to Getafe for €10m), Miguel Gutierrez (to Girona for €4m) and Victor Chust (to Cadiz for €1m).
And although only a select few make it to the first team — Dani Carvajal, Nacho Fernandez and Lucas Vazquez are the latest to do so — Real Madrid academy graduates can be found across Spanish football. Other first-team players such as Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo, Federico Valverde and Mariano Diaz all joined as youngsters and appeared for Real Madrid Castilla, essentially the club’s reserve team but one that is packed with youth players and is considered part of the academy, before making their senior debuts for the club.
There is a reason why they call it La Fabrica (“The Factory”), a term coined by the legendary ex-Madrid player and manager Alfredo di Stefano. As many as 55 active La Liga players have passed through this prolific academy, as analysed by The Athletic. Even arch-rivals Barcelona have one: former Chelsea wing-back Marcos Alonso.
So what are the secrets behind La Fabrica’s success?
Those who work there believe its biggest strength is its philosophy, shaped by a particular mix of values and processes. They see their approach as different to that taken by others, not only across Spain but the world of football. This is why…
La Fabrica’s origins go back to the 1950s. It was a project started by perhaps Madrid’s most famous president, Santiago Bernabeu, and was the first of its kind in Spain.
At that time, promising players were recruited from local schools or through tournaments in which the children of club members took part.
The first four great canteranos in Madrid’s history were Juan Santisteban, Antonio Ruiz, Ramon Marsal and Enrique Mateos — the latter a winner of five European Cups between 1956-60.
They were succeeded by the “ye-ye” boys, named after a music group of the time, who lifted the sixth European Cup in 1966: Pedro de Felipe, Fernando Serena, Ramon Grosso and Manuel Velazquez.
However, the generation remembered most fondly at Madrid is probably the Quinta del Buitre (“The Vulture Five”) of the 1980s, so-called in reference to Emilio Butragueno, who is now director of institutional relations at Real Madrid. The five were completed by Manolo Sanchis, Miguel Pardeza, Michel and Martin Vazquez. Pardeza would leave for Zaragoza in the mid 1980s but the other four all played a massive role as Madrid won five league titles in a row (1985-86, 1986-87, 1987-88, 1988-89 and 1989-90) and the UEFA Cup twice (1984-85 and 1985-86).
They were also the first academy generation not to be sent away to a particular town in the north of Spain, essentially to be “fattened up”.
For years La Fabrica had been sending young players to Cedeira, in Galicia, to improve their diet and strengthen their physique. Many of its prospects needed to gain weight as they suffered from the poor nutrition affecting youngsters of that time.
Times have certainly moved on. But the club still seeks to connect its past with new faces and new names.
La Fabrica has since 2020 been led by ex-footballer Manuel Fernandez. His father was a Madrid director and he himself spent six years at the academy as a coach.
Abian Perdomo is his right-hand man. Former Madrid players such as Raul and Alvaro Arbeloa are youth coaches (at Real Madrid Castilla), with other roles taken up by more ex-players such as Juan Jose Vallina, Juan Carlos Duque and Jordi Codina.
The aim today is to create what they call a “global” player. The academy encourages its youngsters to adapt, and not to develop a style that is too fixed. The idea is for them to end up with the competitive characteristics needed to thrive in different environments.
Gonzalo Exposito, 24, now plays for Madrid side Las Rozas in the fifth tier of Spanish football and spent nine years in Madrid’s youth system. This is how he explains it:
“At Madrid, I started at right-back, then they moved me to centre-back, but many coaches have played me as a midfielder.
“I’ve come to see that the academy taught me to understand football well, to play in many positions.”
Among the younger age groups up to the under-14s, the priority is on playing, with less focus on drills. From under-15 onwards, there is a greater emphasis on specific, regulated training practices. But there is also flexibility. Madrid tend to try and fit their systems around the players, rather than the other way around.
And what about the players? Where do they come from?
Raul, now the manager of Castilla, made 741 appearances for Real Madrid from 1994 to 2010 – a club record
Real Madrid’s scouts work hard to bring the best talent to all of the club’s youth categories.
Decades ago, future legends such as Iker Casillas and Sanchis made their way in after impressing in special tournaments held by the club. That led to open trials where others were invited to showcase their talent. But all that is in the past.
Now there is far more scrutiny and planning involved in the recruitment process. Open trials no longer take place, and if a player is spotted they will be watched for six or seven matches rather than just one or two.
When it comes to signing players below the under-12 age bracket, Real Madrid do not have a network of international scouts. Instead, they focus on local players based in the Community of Madrid. This is an approach influenced by recent FIFA studies on the negative consequences of uprooting players from their family homes, studies which say it is not advisable to move them more than 100km.
Madrid do have eyes across the rest of Spain too, employing one scout for each of the country’s 17 autonomous communities, such as Catalonia, Andalusia or the Canary Islands. The players from outside, those who are not from Madrid, live in a state-of-the-art residence that opened in 2014.
But those who work at La Fabrica are aware that, statistically, players born in Madrid are the most likely to make it to the first team, and they cite Carvajal and Nacho as the best examples.
Often Nacho’s name is mentioned by coaches here because he was born in Alcala de Henares (in the Community of Madrid) and because he was a captain in all the club’s youth categories, but more than anything they hold him up as an example because of his behaviour.
At Madrid, they attribute great importance to the behaviour of their players. Speaking to The Athletic, Butragueno puts it like this: “They are instilled with values such as respect (and) commitment to maintain their form because they are all ambassadors of the club.
“These values are reflected in the player’s career, as his career progresses. They are also reflected in the competitiveness. We pay a lot of attention to their behaviour on the field and off, how they relate to each other.
“It’s something we really believe in.”
Those at the academy speak of its “Real Madrid DNA”, its history and long association with the club, its share of its expectation levels and media scrutiny. And, of course, its success.
Fran Garcia (right), now of Rayo Vallecano, in action against Tottenham’s Oliver Skipp for Real Madrid in UEFA’s Youth Champions League in 2017 (Photo: Antonio Villalba/Real Madrid via Getty Images)
But there are many of course, who won’t be successful.
Most of those at the academy today, the vast majority, will not make it to Madrid’s first team. Many will not become professional footballers.
“I was in favour of telling the players that it was difficult and that the objective was to be normal people,” says Vicente del Bosque, who before becoming Real Madrid manager in 1999, worked in the youth academy for more than two decades.
Those working at La Fabrica now continue in the same vein. Especially when the players are starting out, they try to make them understand that they have to enjoy the opportunity. Although some of youngsters find it hard to understand, they all know that it is the most demanding football school in the world.
There are two particular stages when a large number of players are released: when they make the leap from alevin to infantil (between the under-12 and under-13 age groups) and from cadete to juvenil (between under-16 and under-17).
But the club does have a policy of following the progress of those they choose to release. In fact, the players who leave are followed more closely than other targets.
Accustomed to giving examples, at Madrid they praise the career of goalkeeper Mario de Luis, who was formed in their youth system but was then released and left for Rayo Vallecano. The scouts did not lose sight of him and, seeing how well he performed at the neighbouring Madrid team, decided to recruit him again. He is now first-choice for Raul’s Castilla.
“You have to throw the door open to get to the first team,” explains one source with great experience of Madrid’s youth system and who is used to seeing gems leave the club due to an excess of talent.
Portraits of the 2022-23 season’s players across age groups on the walls at La Fabrica (Photo: Guillermo Rai)
“But when Real Madrid sell a player, they keep part of his contract and have an option to buy him back or apply for a loan deal.”
This source, who wished to remain anonymous in order to protect their position, was not at all surprised by the recent news about Fran Garcia.
The 23-year-old left-back left Madrid for Rayo Vallecano, first on loan in 2020 before joining permanently in 2021. There he has excelled and, as was confirmed by Rayo president Raul Martin Presa in an interview on Tuesday, in the summer he will return to Madrid, the club who formed him. Madrid had retained an option to buy him back for €5m and, amid strong rival interest from Bayer Leverkusen, decided to bring him back home.
“You don’t just need talent. You have to have luck, to work hard, and to sacrifice many, many things,” says Exposito, who is only a year older than Garcia.
Del Bosque agrees. Everyone has to follow the same difficult path, but he also says you also find the odd exception that breaks the rule: “People like Casillas and Raul can skip all this because they are so very good.”
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Anyone else watching barca and real?
Been a decent game. Barca might have just won la Liga with a goal on the stroke of 90
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It’s like I’m in the stadium the picture quality is so good
I see now that the classico thread has been subverted
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Real Madrid lost 4-2 to Girona today, all four goals scored by Taty Castellanos.
Barca have just clinched La Liga at local rivals Espanol who are facing relegation. Espanol fans took offence at the Barca celebrations so invaded the pitch.
Proper fucking order
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They had them scurrying there like Shamrock Rovers supporters in Limerick
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Would Espanyol be the royalist/spanish nationalist club in Catalonia?
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Yes. Bunch of cunts
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Dancing around in a circle holding hands, what a shower of fucking fannies.
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Grown men playing ring a rosey
Could have done with a flag being stuck into the centre circle to spruce it up.
And surrounded by models on their night out after it… some fannies alright…