Real Madrid youth movement -serious discussion.

In past few years club has not made any serious acquisitions to which we all to varying degrees have protested. Rather the only signings have been youthful promising talents.

In this timeframe, there has been a lot if criticism of this youth movement, but I would suggest the only real validity of this criticism, are only the youth and no veterans or proven stars in this timeframe and too many youth at the same time.

We have now seen the emergence of Llorente after literally being casted away by two different coaches and only played by Solari when he finally recognized he had no other alternative. When he was permanently glued to the bench, only Hala was in support of him.

Earlier this year, we saw the emergence of Ceballos after being ignored by Zidane. I recall Sports and others saying he didn’t deserve to be on the team.

And then we saw Reguilion and Odriozola (him from an offensive point of view, we have yet to see an adequate defensive showing) put in very good performances.

And we still await for the emergence of Fede, but in the few appearances so far, he does seem to have the talent, yet only MTO seems to rate him!

Vinicius is another who has shown glimpses of talent.

Actually the only youth on team that hasn’t displayed talent necessary to be on this team is Vallejo, yet at the time he was picked up, he was rated much higher than Hermoso, Valverde and Sanchez, all of whom have surpassed him while he is injured or permanently glued to bench.

I could add Asensio to the list, but he has displayed his talent numerous times last season and early this season. I have no other explanation for his poor performances this season!

My point is, all of this youth movement, have shown over time, they have the talent.

I believe the issues are

1. Exclusively signing youth talents and bypassing signing proven pros. Should be a combination of both.

2. Having too many youth on first team. Now a days, it seems all backup positions are youth, wherein the past, it was a mixture of trusted veterns and a couple of developing youths.

3. Too many youths, means there aren’t enough minutes to develop all of them and the coaches can’t trust bench.

4. And lastly all recruitment, both veterans and youth, should be based on squad needs not just whatever talents are available. If we aren’t going to play a AM role, why bother signing a dozen of them?


What does GL Real Madrid fans think?

I think that the youth being signed aren't the brightest stars in their class....  because you need to pay a monster amount for those in today's market.

No way in the world Flo spends 40 mil on the young German CB Kehrer or 100 mil for Martial or 180 mil for Mbappe... or even what Matthijs de Ligt, Ndombele or Lucas Hernandez would cost this summer.

Instead, we're signing kids with absolutely ZERO top level experience.  Nothing.  And it's not like we're buying them cheap either.

I think our whole way of thinking in terms of transfers is complete shit for an elite club.  We don't have the scouting to find diamonds in the rough.. which is apparently what we're trying to do.

its too early to draw any positive conclusions. just some months ago, asensio was the next young spanish hope, not long after he seems not to want the pressure, now he's on the bench. i maintain, if we want to see solid developments the youth teams should be doing better in their divisions. i'm not against signing youth players. if they are beasting in the lower divisions, by all means, give them a go.

i do like how llorente has played so far, but i'm not about to give him props yet, i need a larger body of work. i still like our style of loaning players out to semi reasonable clubs to develop. if castilla was putting buts in seats, then i'd be all for just bringing them from there straight away

we're not a club that should be giving a chance to kids beasting at lower levels... at lesser top level clubs or foreign top level teams, fine. But beasting at lower levels is an indication of absolutely nothing in terms of top level football.

PSG gives its kids a chance... but 1 or 2 and only as secondary subs (not primary ones). And typically, that's only to showcase them for a loan spell somewhere as opposed to any real desire to make them true first team options.

Unless we want to become Monaco, we shouldn't pretend to be a developmental club. We neither have the scouting nor the patience.

i'm not saying they should become starters, neither am i saying we should have a bench of 7 castilla lads. but if they are doing well at lower levels , you can slowly initiate about 2 or 3 from that group, and have them on the bench, sort of an incentive if you will. i've always been about squad depth, so i don't mean depth with kids as back ups.

and if the lower divisions aren't doing all that but you have some with potential, send them on loan abroad

Sports of all the kids you listed, I would say only Mbappe has more presumed talent than most of the kids we signed. All of Asensio, Ceballos, Vallejo, going back a bit Isco, had la liga experienced and were highly rated. Add in Vinicius and Rodrygo and then players like Llorente,  Carvajal, Valverde and Casemiro gained experience before returning back.

I maintain the issue is too many, it should be as you said is the case at PSG, in that you can't give your entire bench sufficient time to develop.

@ Tito, I was discussing talent to be on this team, not to be starters. Let's be clear, these kids are signed on potential. That does mean riding the bench, awaiting your opportunities and then proving that you can earn a starter spot. If after 2 or 3 years, you don't demonstrate that, then it's fair game to bring in someone else to give them the opportunity.

I believe, you sign starters based on club needs / deficiencies (and based on coach's requests), the bench should be a mixture of veterans and youth, but in all cases should represent a challenge to starter plus good enough to fill in when needed. Each season, the starters should be strategically replaced based on performances, deficiencies / needs and the bench should be regularly updated based on their development and performances.

My point to you both is I don't think Flo and Co. erred in any of their youth signings, only that they have made way to many, signed for positions we don't use and didn't sent kids packing when they didn't perform i.e. Vallejo.

i've come to terms with the fact this is a transitional period, whatever they have done now cannot be undone, and at least, the young players are giving effort. despite what carvajal said, i think so far many of them can say that for their level of talent they have tried

i just hope we don't go into next season again pinning our hopes on another bunch of no-names

titosantill wrote:i'm not saying they should become starters, neither am i saying we should have a bench of 7 castilla lads. but if they are doing well at lower levels , you can slowly initiate about 2 or 3 from that group, and have them on the bench, sort of an incentive if you will. i've always been about squad depth, so i don't mean depth with kids as back ups.

and if the lower divisions aren't doing all that but you have some with potential, send them on loan abroad

That works...  and only as secondary subs.  You're basically showing them what it takes to be a professional mostly in training and off the pitch with a few cameo appearances.  

That's how top clubs handle kids unless we're talking about phenoms.  Frankly, that's how ZZ handled the kids.  The problem is that we never loaned them out.  We hold on to the hope that inexperienced players will magically turn into Madrid level players.

In short, we're looking for kids to take a shortcut and there are very few that are capable of it.

Carvajal said nothing negative about the youth, the Marca (in english) article that one of you linked included a sensationalist mistranslation.  

Our forward line and how the Vinicius situation links to that is prob the worst thing about the whole youth movement thing. Also, i'm not particularly impressed by what i perceive to be the ceiling of players like Vinicius, Rodrygo, and Odegaard. We will see.

sportsczy wrote:

titosantill wrote:i'm not saying they should become starters, neither am i saying we should have a bench of 7 castilla lads. but if they are doing well at lower levels , you can slowly initiate about 2 or 3 from that group, and have them on the bench, sort of an incentive if you will. i've always been about squad depth, so i don't mean depth with kids as back ups.

and if the lower divisions aren't doing all that but you have some with potential, send them on loan abroad

That works...  and only as secondary subs.  You're basically showing them what it takes to be a professional mostly in training and off the pitch with a few cameo appearances.  

That's how top clubs handle kids unless we're talking about phenoms.  Frankly, that's how ZZ handled the kids.  The problem is that we never loaned them out.  We hold on to the hope that inexperienced players will magically turn into Madrid level players.

In short, we're looking for kids to take a shortcut and there are very few that are capable of it.

Sports, I don’t know why you make these unfounded statements! On current roster, Reguilion was the only Castilla player that wasn’t loaned out and last year it was Achraf and Mayoral. If you are talking about signings from other clubs, they do bring them to training camp forcing them to make an impression upon coach to make team.

There would be nothing wrong with bringing in a fewer number of these kids. I’ll give you a prime example. Zidane did as you suggested in burying Ceballos on bench yet he proved this season, he was more than capable of providing a backup role, once given the sufficient minutes he needed.

Again the issue isn’t any particular kid, but rather the number of kids on squad.

Some of these kids might someday be a starter on club, or not. But if they don’t progress enough after a couple of years, you sell them and bring in another promise!

Besides in today’s game, you have a hard time getting enough veterans to accept a backup role yet be good enough to challenge starter and be good enough to competently step in when needed. I think of Danilo as case in point!

I started this thread, pointing out that almost every kid this year has demonstrated ability or talent which I suggest shows the club isn’t wrong in who they selected. The issues are too many, that having a youth movement should not be exclusive, ignoring the necessary signings of star players and the ill fault of signing solely on talent and ignoring club’s needs (I’m thinking here of signing numerous AMs when club has shown no desire to deploy any tactics that require AMs).