The Madrid academy production line has rarely spun faster, or more profitably, than it has this summer. Barely a day after Jacobo Ortega’s record €10m move to Strasbourg came to light, two more graduates have been quietly moved towards the exit at Valdebebas — and the manner of it tells you how ruthlessly efficient Real Madrid have become at monetising La Fabrica.
According to AS, Manuel Angel and David Jimenez have both been told they will be sold before the window shuts on 31 August. Neither has a route into Jose Mourinho’s first-team squad this season, and both are now training away from the group while the club looks for buyers.
Why the Madrid academy pair are training alone
The separate sessions are not a snub. As Madrid Universal report, the pair have been left out of Castilla’s pre-season friendlies and matchday squads as a deliberate insurance policy: a knock now would wreck a move that suits everybody. Interest is said to span LaLiga, the Segunda Division and clubs abroad, though nothing has hardened into a concrete offer.
Bernabeu Digital add that several Spanish clubs are keen on Manuel Angel in particular, and that Madrid will use the same template they have applied to the rest of this summer’s academy departures: buy-back clauses that let the club reclaim a player who kicks on, plus a percentage of any future sale. Neither the destination nor the fee is settled in either case.
Two graduates good enough to have played
This is not the usual clearing of squad filler. Manuel Angel, a 22-year-old midfielder who joined La Fabrica in 2014, has long been rated among the best technicians at Valdebebas — ambidextrous, composed and comfortable dictating tempo. He made seven first-team appearances late last season.
David Jimenez is an attacking full-back with what the academy regards as one of its finest right feet, a natural leader whose forward instincts have drawn comparisons with Dani Carvajal, the former captain who was released this summer. He, too, featured for the senior side last term.
Both came through the treble-winning youth generation coached by Alvaro Arbeloa, who has since left the club, alongside Nico Paz and Gonzalo Garcia. That cohort has now been almost entirely dispersed, which is either a damning verdict on the pathway to the Bernabeu or a compliment to the quality it keeps producing, depending on which Madridista you ask.
A €200m summer for the Madrid academy
The numbers are the story. Once Ortega and the rest are accounted for, Madrid Universal report that Real Madrid’s academy income this summer will pass €200m — described internally as a historic window. For a club that declared its incoming business complete before the season started, that is the quiet engine behind the spending, and it reframes what La Fabrica is now for.
The uncomfortable part, for supporters raised on the idea of the cantera feeding the first team, is that the academy’s biggest contribution to this squad may be financial rather than sporting. Manuel Angel and David Jimenez will build their careers elsewhere, with a route back written into the paperwork. Whether either takes it is a question for a different season entirely.
