Transfer Rumours | Tactics | Who to buy/sell etc

When you say something as provocative and with lack of explicit nuance like "Castilla is a buisness not a feeder," you will logically get clarification from people who call bs on the remark.

And one of the reasons Castilla can't stay up in segunda division funny enough is that the players are too good to stay, which is something a lot of people don't grasp and they instead think the club's academy is trash.  

And no, Madrid should not be a development club, it must be balanced and it is a refresher Perez is trying some new things within relative reason.

We actually have a track record of developing young players: Higuain, Ramos, Marcelo, Gago (we took him as far as we could), De La Red (was unfortunate), Varane, Nacho, Asensio, Vasquez.

Sports what are you looking at?

Mr Nick09 wrote:We actually have a track record of developing young players: Higuain, Ramos, Marcelo, Gago (we took him as far as we could), De La Red (was unfortunate), Varane, Nacho, Asensio, Vasquez.

Sports what are you looking at?

Ramos?  Already made a name for himself before we got him.  

Marcelo had played two seasons with Fluminense when we got him.  But OK.  Let's take a loose definition.

Gago had 3 seasons (and 2 very good ones) with Boca Juniors.  

De La Red was loaned out to Getafe where he showed his stuff... similar to Carvajal deal there except for what happened.

Varane is 100 percent a Lens product and was one of the best defenders in Ligue 1 when he left at the age of 18.  He had an insane 2nd half of the season there.  That's why he cost so much and had everyone after him.

Asensio is really a Mallorca product.... but I'll give Madrid the benefit here since Mallorca wasn't in La Liga then.

Nacho and Vasquez... sure.  Kind of scrubby but you take what you can.

Higuain was a River Plate product and scored 13 goals for them.  Similar to Ousmane Dembele at Rennes for example.  Nobody's going to say Dembele's anything other than a Rennes product.

I'd say Marcelo got the fairest shake. Varane and Higuain developed themselves more than anything Madrid did. They were blocked forever. Higuain finally decided he had enough.

is this your proof that we develop kids?

maybe i am confused with your definition of developing, but to me signing a 18-20 years old from a lower club whom you build into a starter and a star is called developing a player. it doesnt just apply to an academy kid that you sign as a teenager.

Of course we are not signing complete nobodies, we signed players with pedigree, at a very young age, we effectively DEVELOPED them, and they became football stars.

Sports by your definition what top club has produced any top player besides Barca?

Considering Iniesta and Messi came from other clubs, they should totally not count in that very harsh look at development.

sportsczy wrote:You're missing his point Nick.  Nivash is saying that Madrid has traditionally developed kids and Castilla has fed the senior side.

That's false.  We bought the best Spanish players.  We developed players... but not much for ourselves.  Most of our Castilla players are sold.  

Also, compare our bench the past 2 seasons with our benches from 2003 until 2017...  they are DRASTICALLY different.  We literally collected names in the past.

Btw, I like the current bench tactic better than the galactico days.  Nacho, Isco/Asensio, Ceballos, Mariano and Navas/Courtois is good and better than last year (mainly because kids are getting older and they tend to get better with age).  I think we need more veteran presence and a couple more players to make the bench complete.

We lack depth imo.

Nope, that's not even nearly what I was saying.

I said that, from a recruitment perspective, Perez has always intended to have a mixture of promising youth and superstar talent. We didn't recruit superstar talent because there was none reasonably available to recruit, but we have recruited promising youth, and what's the point of recruiting promising youth if not to give them the opportunity to prove they're worth the chance when it presents itself. Not once did I speak about the club/Castilla being a development/feeder club, only that when the promising youth have had a chance to develop, there's no point ignoring them, since it would undermine having recruited them to begin with. Case in point, Kovacic was ripe to start taking more responsibility from Modric since Modric necessarily would need more rest/recovery at this point in his career. He chose to leave, so Ceballos/Valverde move up the pecking order.

sportsczy is looking at castilla. transitioning from castilla to the first team. ramos varane marcelo higuain hierro et al don't count, they never played a day at the academy level, they were hyped youngsters, especially ramos.

carvajal, de la red, morata, eto'o are castilla players who were sent out to develop their talents elsewhere and earned the right to return (which is a policy we have used for years now, and is one i don't mind).

players just moving from castilla with no loan, no buy back, but earning their stripes and then making a name for themselves is not something we have been successful at. last time we did that was iker in 99/00, before him raul. just to be nice, i'll give you guti, even though he wasn't a starter. so as far as us developing straight hot shot prodigies without having to loan them out elsewhere isn't something we are familiar with

It's something that is cyclical, because It's been 10 years and every youngsters barca have hyped up to be the next xavi or iniesta has fell short so far. Not even Thiago is at that level.

Producing straight geniuses from your academy without giving them some kind of loan or outside experience is extremely difficult. I dont even know how this is something Sports want to hold against us

oh and La Quinta Del Bruite definitely never happened

we've always looked to feed the first team but to very little success, loan/buy back for me has been our best option, the history of our straight to castilla to first team players has been nothing special. and i'm not saying they should all be rauls...but come on minambres pavon mejia and a host of others who we have forgotten to remember. if they could all at least be like nacho i would have given props but most have been woeful

and nobody is saying the infrastructure of castilla is bad, i'm sure its amazing, but if we want to do straight from castilla to first team, something has to change. whether scouting training or something...our record of castilla guys who've gone on loan pales in comparison to those we've just pushed forward from the b team. they come back better. the last great castilla era was quinta del buitre era. nick quinta happened in the 1980s, we are in 2018. and they were specialor at least the structure was special as one of the castilla teams then made the copa del rey final and lost to the first team

and whilst i agree it is cyclical, (everyone brings up barcelona, but its not like what happened with them was the norm for them, the stars just line up at the right time), one wants to at least witness the signs of the cycle happening. you guys follow castilla a lot more than me, and based on the comments i read on here, over the years, they seem to have been giving y'all more heartache than anything. so how can we promote from that?

btw should this whole youth issue be a thread of its own? it seems there are two schools of thoughts on the issue.

I really like the idea of developing kids ASSUMING we're committed to it. I just doubt the commitment once we get a few bad results. I trust Lopetegui for staying the course.... i don't trust our executives.

I also think we need a couple of veteran players on the bench to balance things out. There are situations where you need a known quantity as an option.

Bill knows...  I've always advocated that Real Madrid should recruit the best Spanish players.  For example, Marcos Alonso, Thiago, etc. would be great recruits.  De Gea as well (that ship sailed; I know).  I just hate kids coming to this team when they're still wet behind the ears because I feel bad for them honestly.  For every success story of a kid succeeding in the Madrid pressure cooker, you have many more who were unnecessarily ruined.

For the sake of these young talents, I'd rather they get experience and develop somewhere that allows for mistakes and growing pains.

I’m watching this documentary about Ceballos on Amazon.

Apparently Zidane was his childhood hero and Dani dubbed himself Zidani as a child.

Imagine being coached by your childhood idol and benched for a year after scoring a brace

That would actually be a huge let down however you view it.

that's a never meet your hero story right there

Freeza wrote:I’m watching this documentary about Ceballos on Amazon.

Apparently Zidane was his childhood hero and Dani dubbed himself Zidani as a child.

Imagine being coached by your childhood idol and benched for a year after scoring a brace

Wow... that's pretty sad.

Supposedly we’re after another young Brazilian forward, Pedro from Flumenense. Reported by AS and goloboespotre.

We're building the Castilla galacticos... I get it now.

Well, it's understandable for Florentino to go for this policy. He's planning on making Madrid pay for the stadium from their own pockets, so naturally, he can only afford to go after scrubs and unproven players.

Brace yourselves for the Gagos and Drenthes to wear the Madrid shirt again

For every Gago/Drenthe’s if we get a few Ramos/Marcelo’s I’m happy with it. Plus our policy is different now, Gago Marcelo and Ramos were getting a ton of playing time before they really deserved it, I think the system of loan/buy-back combined with blooding the youngsters slowly in the first team is a much more conservative and smarter approach.

No one is suggesting Vinicius, Rodrygo, or Pedro start for us, but the fact that we putting small bets on them now could pay off hugely in the future.

they're not really smart bets.  40+ mil for vinicius.  45 mil for rodrygo and now whatever for this kid.

To put it in perspective, Malcom who is 21, and 10x better and just as talented as these kids, cost Barca 41 mil.

The only one I have high hopes for is Rodrygo (mostly due to freeza).  Vinicius looks like a Sevilla player to me coming up.

Malcom is 21 and those kids are 18, i am happy for Malcom that he looks better than these kids, and i would be worried otherwise.

From what i have seen from Malcom is ceiling is Douglas Costa, so im not so impressed. The market will forever be like this, at the end of the day it comes down to how much you believe in a kid or not + market opportunities.

As for Pedro Guilherme, 25 millions for a 21 who is considered as the best striker in Brazil and got a call up is a pretty good deal just on paper. It's unlikely he will come at his age and with the reputation he already has to play for Castilla.

I definitely disagree about Vinicius, and I am not sure how you can say that considering he has been fantastic since coming to Spain. Exactly which performance do you point to that makes you say this 18 y/o doesn't have great potential?

Though I agree about Malcom, he plays on the opposite wing then what we needed, and apart from him forwards with lots of potential are not going for less than 50m anymore, this is the market we live in now.

Listen, there's nothing wrong with buying youngsters with great potential every now and then. However, you shouldn't base your entire transfer policy on it because there's no guarantee they'll turn to world beaters.

For every Ramos and Marcelo you develop, you'll have a gazillion failed ones. It would take you three lifetimes to assemble the team you want. So the best approach is to have the core of the team made of already-established world-class players and the rest made of promising and really talented youngsters.

You have to make sure to replace immediately any core player that you lose or sell with another world beater to stay competitive at the highest level and to not cripple the youngsters with a pressure that neither their age nor talent can withstand.

What Madrid is doing right now is really dangerous because they are not replacing the core players they're losing. They're just stocking up on youngsters while completely ignoring their depleting core of the team.

This approach is fine for a mid-table team, but it's suicide for a team that wants to stay competitive at the highest level.

The way the football market has gone, you need a tremendous amount of luck to replace any top player you lose due to age or transfer out, with a player of the same quality without making a loss.

I give you a simple example: Modric. The club would love nothing more than to sign another "modric" for 45 mil as we did 6 years ago. But in this market, impossible, unless the guy has a year left on his deal. For a guy like Eriksen, Spurs are asking over 150 millions. How do you for sure identify the next Modric if you are not already looking at a confirmed player? clubs now just price up everyone.

you HAVE TO make gambles on young talents you allow to grow.

Ronaldo left and the only potentially available "star" (who isnt even half as decisive) was Hazard, and we would have had to break the transfer ceiling at over 222 millions to get him. Neymar and Mbappe were not available. If and when they will be, their price will be closer to 300 mil if anything.

We will soon need a CB to replace Ramos, should we go to the market and spend 75 millions on a player like Van Dijk?

This is an unsustainable way of looking at things, and i really wonder whether you even care about these things because all do is ask for top signings. But like who? and and what cost? You keep asking for top players but you never name anyone. You have to say it clearly, like "I want madrid to break the bank for Hazard" so we know where you stand.

To be sustainable long term you have to make gambles on young talents and seize opportunities wherever you can take them. Maybe if Hazad doesnt renew, with one year left on his deal, chelsea has less leverage and has to sell for a lot less. You have to look at a player like Rabiot who is not renewing his deal with PSG and pounce hard. Alderweireld might be in the same situation, etc... this is the new market reality, you sink or you swim. It seems as though you are stuck with the mindset madrid fans had in the 2000s when we started signing Galacticos, as if we could get anyone at anytime (and it wasn't even true back then).