Youngsters should leave as long as Zidane is the manager

Zidane doesn't like youngsters. He is not three manger who can integrate a teenage kid into first team. He has always preferred oldies to youngsters and it is not going to change.

All the aspiring youngsters should leave for their career's sake.

Which makes sense if you think about it. Madrid is coming out of a trophyless season and absolutely must go back to winning again, and they are not going to do it with unproven teenagers.

Just look at all the teenagers and kids Madrid has bought in recent years and see how many of them actually "made it". In this regard, Madrid absolutely sucks in developing young talent and/or spotting the next Ronaldo/Messi before everybody else does.

Any rising starlet should reject any offers from Madrid, and Madrid should be honest with themselves and only go after established stars. And only, only go after a young talent when the said talent is really, really good (like a 19-year old Mbappé or a 19-year old De Ligt for example).

Madrid's main success in the 21st century came essentially through established world beaters and galacticos. We are not Ajax or Benfica with brilliant football academies and patience to develop future ballon d'or winners. Any attempt in trying to do that will fail as we've seen recently with all the promising youngsters Madrid bought and tried to develop but failed miserably.

And please, if they are not planning on playing Vini regularly, send him away on loan or something. No need to waste the poor kid's future riding the bench.

Zidane has no problems with youngsters providing they are good. I can easily list names of young players he gave chances to. Not his fault if many disappointed

In my honest opinion, Zizou is very much like his actual mentor, Carlo Ancelotti in how he handles young footballers. Like Carlo, they don't necessarily have an issue playing them but you gotta come good for him to replace one of his main players in their usual starting line up.

Also, who are these young players Zizou integrated into the squad? Kovacic wasn't a youngster imo but I guess you can include him. Theo is another, definitely gave him a proper run out.

Casemiro got his shot truly under Zidane. Morata didn't start in big games... but played a ton with ZZ there.

Lucas Vasquez

Ashraf Hakimi got a taste.. sucked horribly; but we didn't have a choice and ZZ gave him a run.

Nacho became a mainstay rotational player. He was mostly a castilla player before zz.

Asensio got a chance. Isco was resurrected.

ZZ doesn't really care about age imo. You just have to deliver. It just so happens that veterans deliver more often and more consistently than kids. It's not like we've had super talented kids knocking on the door where ZZ has blocked them.

That Numpty Theo Hernandez was playing double left back from the start of the season.

I feel title is a little misguided. It’s not Zidane nor Flo, it’s Real Madrid. A youngster, a kid under 21, will not get minutes at Real period. Doesn’t matter who the coach is, nor the nationality. The coach is under pressure to get results not experiment nor develop  Youngsters.

Isco hasn’t been a youngster for some time !

Morata, his second time was not a kid and had experience and played well as a backup. So he is not a valid example. His problem was too fold. The starter sucked, at least that year and he thought he was good enough to be a starter.

Nacho and Lucas are the perfect examples of career squad players. Versatile and happy with a reserve role.

I don’t feel kids should be reluctant to sign with Madrid, but they are far better off to go out on loans or even sales with buy backs to develop. Obviously playing 3rd level futbol with Castilla is not sufficient for final  development. Going elsewhere is much better than riding the bench at a time when playing regularly is compulsory to that final development.

Let’s examine the cases of Asensio, Vinicius, Rodrygo, Ceballos, Odegaard, Fede over the next 3 years and then render judgement.

Maybe Asensio just had an off year and will make it.

Maybe Vinicius and Rodrygo are diamonds in the rough and are the exceptions to becoming the next Neymar or  Ronaldino (hopefully without off field antics).

Maybe Ceballos or Odegaard develop more by playing than Fede does riding the bench!

Only time will tell.

Meanwhile Madrid has made over 245M over last 10 years in selling youth. That’s at least 80M more than Barca.

So although not many youth make it with the big club, it is a profitable business line of club and just getting 1 out of 10 youngsters to work out is well worth the investment.

Youngsters can make it if they prove to be good enough for Elite. Same response for Cantera players. Ceballos for example was not a victim of ageism, he was a victim of notgoodenoughism. So was Llorente and Kovacic, all of which i have made correct assessments of, unlike many of you.

As for Reguilon, he'll be back. I can understand Zidane bringing in a more talented player like Mendy and betting to bring Marcelo up to good form again.

Seems to me, a lot of posters want to write various players off as numpties or not good enough.

The job of club in general is to recruit and develop talent. The job of coach is to develop a winning club.

Some of these kids are not good enough, some not developed enough, some have issues with pressure / confidence and some don’t have the style/role to suit coach of the day. But that doesn't mean they are numpties nor don’t have talent. If you look across Europe, you’ll find a large number of former Madrid canteras or at one point or other Madridistas that are solid professionals. I would even venture to say more than any other club!

I know MTO is raving about Fede and claiming Ceballos is garbage, which seems to be his basis for most of his posts. I say let’s examine where both are in 3 years time. More than probably neither will be with Madrid by then, but I suggest we ask, at that time who is the better developed player?

That's not the club's job though Bill... the club's job is to provide the most successful and entertaining team it can to its fans. That's as far as that goes. If cantera and young players can feed those goals, great.

Some clubs are forced to develop players because they can't compete with the elite in terms of buying or keeping the truly top players. Real Madrid is definitely not one of those clubs.

Barca used to be... but they've become elite and have gone away from that too.

sports, the club is not just the first team! The job of the club is to acquire / develop talent period. It’s up to the coach to mold that talent and acquirements for 1st team into a winning team. I’ll agree with you in regards to 1st team only.

futbol_bill wrote:sports, the club is not just the first team! The job of the club is to acquire / develop talent period. It’s up to the coach to mold that talent and requirements for 1st team into a winning team. I’ll agree with you in regards to 1st team only.

Yeah, I could agree to this line Bill.

futbol_bill wrote:sports, the club is not just the first team! The job of the club is to acquire / develop talent period. It’s up to the coach to mold that talent and acquirements for 1st team into a winning team. I’ll agree with you in regards to 1st team only.

The product is the first team and the brand.... EVERYTHING else is there to support those two, not the other way around.  Same goes for the other sports of Real Madrid btw, not just football.

I would argue that our cantera is a separate business venture... namely, we make money by producing young talent and selling them out.  IF an amazing talent comes around is worthy of the senior club, it's gravy on top in that we realized the value internally as opposed to getting cash.  It's still a transaction in all of the cases.

The basketball team will be surprised to hear your views lol? The cantera line is not that different as to what I was saying in first place.