Transfer Rumours | Tactics | Who to buy/sell etc

In other news, Perez (successfully) got rid of the Mendes camp from Madrid.

My favorites are City, Juve, Barca and PSG as I mentioned. I put us and Bayern on the next tier.

De Bruyne is the other match winner for city to go with Aguero.

PSG has Neymar, Cavani and Mbappe.

Juve has CR

Barca is well known.

i dont see issues with Marcelo adapting, his problem is always effort in defense, never changed.

This is the type of situation the club is looking at, it's a great thing you brought it up. So Marcos Alonso is a castilla graduate who lost his way in england, went through that car crash incident, and now playing at a level we expected to see him at. He is 28, and you can count on Chelsea asking between 40 an 50 millions to sell him, specially if it's us interested. that's the new premium for quality fullbacks.

Why pay that for Alonso when Juventus would barely give you half of that amount for Marcelo, if they are even interested (i dont think they are). Instead you have a young kid like Reguilon that you can work on building up. If you dont believe in him, then you go to market and find another youngster for better value that you sign long term.

We have the money to spend and move around for better options still though. What will be done with the money that isn't used? I still believe we might use it to start the stadium renovation as @nuevobernabeu mentioned we will.

Club is being conservative within reason with transfers, Perez is taking several gambles but other than missing one more attacking option imo we are ok enough. Due to how several domino have fallen and things have unfolded, i see an opportunity for club culture to change to something smarter and more rational regarding transfers and on the field play, and i hope the culture does indeed change for good. Keep killing off the ridiculous Galactico culture and make us play more modern football with better teamwork.

We were shat last season. but still beat PSG, Juventus and Liverpool.

If we improve our defensive play this season i can't see why we shouldn't be among favorites. Ronaldo or no Ronaldo.

Talent wise and on paper we are still the best IMO. what i'm worried about are guys like Marcelo and Modric. getting old and may not be as hungry as they were before.

futbol_bill wrote:MTO, we went thru this a couple of years ago.

The money for acquistions is considered capital and if not spent, it can be used for other capital expenses such as stadium renovations, pay off debt (that was what was done last time to the point we now have zero debt) or it can be deferred over to future years, which is the stated intent this time.

Well then that should clear some heads a little around here regarding some additional reasons for the conservative spending. The stadium renovation is understood to be important for revenue in the future and Perez hired some guy from Canada a few months ago to help with marketing and finding sponsors for the renovation. So we might indeed start the renovation with our own funds. I assume this information will have to appear in the end of year report.

David Hopkinson

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidghopkinson/

https://www.elconfidencial.com/deportes/futbol/2018-06-23/real-madrid-florentino-santiago-bernabeu-dave-hopkinson_1582740/

http://www.sportspromedia.com/movers-and-shakers/real-madrid-appoint-dave-hopkinson-mlse-toronto
Real Madrid's global head of partnerships.

"25 years of Professional Sports leadership, sales and marketing across 6 different leagues including the NBA, the NHL and La Liga. Specialties: Leadership, negotiation, team building and culture, sales and marketing of sports, music and entertainment properties."

Perez's policy has always been a mix of youth and superstar (see Zidanes y Pavones). Arguably, there've been years where it worked out, and others it didn't, but the underlying intention has always been there. Associating him only with Galacticos is only half the story.

Additionally, it's not sensible to invest in youth and then be surprised that the club wants to at least give them a chance to prove themselves, otherwise, what's the point?

Noone is saying that we should only rely on youth, but there's no sense buying a highly rated prospect and allowing them a few years to develop, only to ignore them when there's an opportunity to allow them the chance to prove themselves.

There were no feasible superstar players to add this window, so none were added. CR's contribution obviously needs to be replaced, but I prefer an approach of replacing it with the squad as a whole over looking for a like for like replacement. Although too early to tell, the signs from the games this season suggest that everyone else's contribution was always subservient to CR's. Bale and Benzema both seem to have renewed drive and space to perform. No one knows whether or not it will last, so we just have to watch and enjoy until proven otherwise.

I'd have preferred another CB to compete with Vallejo, but other than that, I think that the only move we could/should have made was Martial.

you're wrong Nivash. Other than Iker, Raul and Guti, we've developed literally nobody that I can think of that got a chance at Real Madrid.

Our youth system is a business. We develop players to sell at a profit to mid table La Liga teams and foreign clubs. It's very profitable for us. Under Perez, it was never used to feed the senior team.

We only sold them because we deemed them not good enough to start at Madrid or even warm the bench. But look at guys like Carvajal and Nacho, they got their chance because they were good enough. Even Morata and Jesé got their chances as well.

La Fábrica is not a business. When they develop a world beater, Madrid doesn't let them go. But don't expect them to give average guys a chance.

sportsczy wrote:you're wrong Nivash. Other than Iker, Raul and Guti, we've developed literally nobody that I can think of that got a chance at Real Madrid.

Our youth system is a business. We develop players to sell at a profit to mid table La Liga teams and foreign clubs. It's very profitable for us. Under Perez, it was never used to feed the senior team.

How it plays it is not necessarily tied to the policy. Perez has always been clear about the Zidanes y Pavones approach. That there haven't been adequate 'Pavones' is not a movement away from the policy.

Carvajal, Jese, Morata, Mayoral, Granero, Achraf, Mariano, Nacho, Vazquez off the top of my head have all come through the academy (even if they left to further their development and returned thereafter, or have left now with the potential of coming back).

They don't need to build into superstars for them to fit into the approach. The key is that they were all given a chance in one form or another.

That's just recently DoC and it has more to do with the fact that Real Madrid can't outspend everyone else anymore...  we're giving some youth a chance now because we can't afford not to.

That said, if Danilo wasn't complete shit, Carval wouldn't have gotten a chance.  Nacho decided to stay despite not being a regular... which most players won't do.  Morata never got a chance to be a regular (and rightly so).  Jese was also a backup although he's the only one who had a legit shot.

Other than Carvajal, our youth only get the chance to be backups...  and that's really because we can't give a legit player so much more money than other clubs to make him accept to stay on the bench nowadays. We used to have WC players back up WC players under Perez (which was a big problem in the locker room).

World has changed.

But Castilla is definitely a business for Real Madrid.  Not a feeder.

La Fabrica sounds like business

sportsczy wrote:That's just recently DoC and it has more to do with the fact that Real Madrid can't outspend everyone else anymore...  we're giving some youth a chance now because we can't afford not to.

That said, if Danilo wasn't complete shit, Carval wouldn't have gotten a chance.  Nacho decided to stay despite not being a regular... which most players won't do.  Morata never got a chance to be a regular (and rightly so).  Jese was also a backup although he's the only one who had a legit shot.

Other than Carvajal, our youth only get the chance to be backups...  and that's really because we can't give a legit player so much more money than other clubs to make him accept to stay on the bench nowadays. We used to have WC players back up WC players under Perez (which was a big problem in the locker room).

World has changed.

But Castilla is definitely a business for Real Madrid.  Not a feeder.

A chance starts with being a backup with view to getting opportunities to prove you should be more

But nobody became a regular other than those mentioned. And until recently, they weren't even backups. Like very recently. Our backups just a few years ago were Kaka, Higuain, Varane, Arbeloa, Coentrao, Lass, Gago, James, Kovacic, etc.

But that list of names carries no weight if you dont specify that we never had any of those names in their primes sitting on our bench. For the most part they were up and coming and trying to prove thmselves as first team players like Higuain, Gago, Varane or Kovacic; Arbeloa was never a star, just a good soldier;Kaka was finished and just collecting cheques.

Also our strategy was never to outspend everyone to fill ourbench with "world class players", it was to sign the best players in the worlld. and to pair them with the best spanish players of the time. I think we are still about that, and just like we did with Gago, Higuain or Marcelo more than 10 years ago, we still value signing upcoming talents, no different from today.

kids get a chance at the measure of their talent and ability. The way we treated Jese, and the chances he got with the first team were nothing like the opportunity Sarabia got for example. Of course the current coaching staff matter, but i think overall we are good judges of the quality we produce out of Castilla. Like Nivash said, when we will have a phenom come through, we will hold onto him.

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.

"Zidanes and Pavones" term is a PR thing first and foremost.  

Since this is the world's biggest club with the highest expectations you can only give real opportunities to youth who actually have something legitimate to offer. You also have to consider economic and squad contexts, etc.

As shown by the CIES studies over the years La Fabrica is one of the most prolific academies in Europe when it comes to developing players that play for teams in the top 5 leagues.

Right now we have  Carvajal, Nacho, Lucas, Casilla, Reguilon, Llorente, and Mariano in our squad from our youth system, and the first 3 have proved good enough for years to not have to go out and buy other similar players for similar roles.

Yes, we could do better with our bench situation, but as i said, we are prob saving for Stadium renovation and transfer expenditures for next year.

futbol_bill wrote:Sports you are right in one extent re too many youth, however you are wrong about history. You are ignoring Hierro, Salgado, Helguera, Miñembres, Pavón, Morientes, Portillo, Pavón, Bravo.

of all those players only pavon portillo minambres and bravo were youth products, and their careers ended before it even got started as they were garbage (portillo was making a name for himself, broke all raul's youth records, but madrid isn't the place for development). hierro salgado mori helguera all made names for themselves in other teams as starters before we signed them. zaragoza were trying to pull some underhanded moves to prevent us from getting mori...i don't know if its coincidence that out of that list the youth teamers didn't pan out. remember meijia too and some other defender (can't remember his name) whose career ended when he was taken off crying against reyes' sevilla team that beat us 4-1. if we really want to do this youth thing, then the whole castilla structure needs to be destroyed and built up from scratch, as the record of talent development is anything but impressive. the record has been a failure if you ask me

titosantill wrote:the whole castilla structure needs to be destroyed and built up from scratch, as the record of talent development is anything but impressive. the record has been a failure if you ask me

With Ciudad Real Madrid we have one of the finest sporting complexes in all of sports and according to the 2017 edition of the International Centre For Sports Studies (CIES) report on youth academies, Madrid can boast at having the most productive youth academy in the world based on how many players from the youth academy (that spend at least 3 years from ages 15-21 in the academy) play in the top 5 european leagues. Look at where overrated academies like Ajax and Bayern are.

http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/b5wp/2017/200/en/




We are producing talent and whether or not they form part of the team is affected by our expectations and other matters of context. Improvements can be made but to call La Fabrica a failure is plain wrong.

More specifically, the conversation was about Madrid having a track record of developing young players.  We don't.  We historically have bought younger players who have already made a name for themselves somewhere else.

In fact, we have a very poor record of developing players with a few exceptions.

The young players we have right now are development projects for the most part, which we've never done under Flo.

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.