There was a very interesting article in one of the Spanish sports dailies today about the Real Madrid soccer academy. Obviously, it is not nearly as famous as Barca’s La Masia, which consistently turns out players for FC Barcelona. Last year, the only academy player who saw significant time for Real Madrid was Raul Asencio, who was called up due to injuries and did very well. This year, Garcia, a young striker, has looked good in the Club Cup according to The Athletic (I haven’t watched any of their games). However, he doesn’t figure in their short-term future.
Compare that to Barcelona, where Yamal, Ferran Torres, Dani Olmo, Gavi, both starting (and injured) defensive MF, Balde, Matin, Fort, Garcia and Cubarsi, all are La Masia graduates and squad members.
Yet, according to the article (and Google Translator), the RM academy had 32 more players playing in the top two leagues of all European countries in 2024-25 than La Masia does.
The article says that while Barca focuses on finding future players for its A team, RM focuses on developing players who are not expected to be good enough to play for it’s A team but are good enough to play in the first division in Hungary or the second division in Portugal. President Perez believes in the “Galactico” approach RM has used since the 1990s for its A team, but sees the Academy as a vehicle for making money from sales to other, lesser teams.
But, the most amusing part of the article for me was that Perez thought the new NCAA rules would create a new profitable market to sell players to American universities and was shocked to find out (1) how low the values will be on good college soccer players in America and (2) that RM can’t get a transfer fee for any of its players if it did “transfer” them to an American college. So, the whole idea has been shelved.
Vidovich used to get one or two players a year from Spain at his former school and occasionally got one for Pitt, but he seems to be focusing more now on Scandinavia players based on last year’s and this year’s rosters.
Compare that to Barcelona, where Yamal, Ferran Torres, Dani Olmo, Gavi, both starting (and injured) defensive MF, Balde, Matin, Fort, Garcia and Cubarsi, all are La Masia graduates and squad members.
Yet, according to the article (and Google Translator), the RM academy had 32 more players playing in the top two leagues of all European countries in 2024-25 than La Masia does.
The article says that while Barca focuses on finding future players for its A team, RM focuses on developing players who are not expected to be good enough to play for it’s A team but are good enough to play in the first division in Hungary or the second division in Portugal. President Perez believes in the “Galactico” approach RM has used since the 1990s for its A team, but sees the Academy as a vehicle for making money from sales to other, lesser teams.
But, the most amusing part of the article for me was that Perez thought the new NCAA rules would create a new profitable market to sell players to American universities and was shocked to find out (1) how low the values will be on good college soccer players in America and (2) that RM can’t get a transfer fee for any of its players if it did “transfer” them to an American college. So, the whole idea has been shelved.
Vidovich used to get one or two players a year from Spain at his former school and occasionally got one for Pitt, but he seems to be focusing more now on Scandinavia players based on last year’s and this year’s rosters.
