Last Friday Luis de la Fuente made public the list of players called up for the team’s friendlies against Colombia and Brazil. In it appeared, for the first time, the central defender of the Barcelona Football Club Pau Cubarsí. The defender will make his debut for Spain, if he plays in London against the ‘coffee growers’, at 17 years and 60 days old. Which would make him the second youngest footballer in wearing the absolute jacket. A prematurity list led by Lamine Yamal, who premiered three days less, and which in six of the top eight places have blaugranas: Lamine, Cubarsí, Gavi, Ansu, Bojan y Pedri.
A debate was immediately opened on the networks about the reasons for this trend and the fact was noted that In the last three decades, 11 players under 20 years of age have debuted, eight of them from Barça and none from Real Madrid. Do we have to look at the criteria of the selectors to explain it or does it have to do with the club model and the different ways of understanding each other’s youth system?
Basque or Madrid school
If the first point is analyzed, that of the selector’s criteria, it is observed that In recent years the national team bench has been polarized by two schools of coaches: the technicians of the Basque school, with Javier Clemente, Iñaki Sáez, Julen Lopetegui or Luis de la Fuente; and those who arrived with Madridista DNA, like Vicente Del Bosque, José Antonio Camacho or Fernando Hierro. Between them were two coaches with charisma such as the athletic Luis Aragonés and the Barça player Luis Enrique. Therefore, the hypothesis of a majority of coaches with Barça sympathies sweeping home is ruled out.
The existence of a common criterion in each school can even be ruled out. Because while De la Fuente warns that “I don’t look at the player’s identity card. If he shows that he is ready, I give him the opportunity he has earned on the field”, Javier Clemente defends the opposite position: “It is not the same to play with 16 years old against a professional team. He can play one day, not three games a week. These 16-year-old boys are playing with a very great risk. It makes me sad that I won’t be able to see a 16-year-old boy again in two years. Yamal, at 16 years old, plays a lot. He has to go at a faster game speed than he should to stand out. That effort he makes has to be stronger and I won’t tell you about the crash anymore. That happened to Ansu Fati. He collided with a 28-year-old guy and blew his knee off. The legs, the bones, the ligaments, the lungs… Everything requires preparation. “It’s not the same at 27 or 23 as it is at 16. The kids are good and well trained, but they have to go to much lesser efforts.”
In fact, Clemente once stopped the debut of the most promising youth player in the White House, although with athletic origins: Raúl González Blanco. The forward, who debuted in the First Division with Real Madrid at the age of 17, did not debut with the national team until he was 19 and 105 days old. The reason is explained by Clemente himself, coach at the time: “I remember that when Raúl made his debut with Valdano, I had been a coach for a short time. I made my debut in the First Division at the age of 18, but I was a substitute and did not go to the national team. They gave birth to me because I didn’t make Raúl debut until two years later. And I said that I already had enough of a burden playing for Real Madrid and what that entailed. We were going to burn him out and he had enough playing for Madrid and that’s what I say about kids.”
Raúl debuted with the senior team at the age of 19 in 1996. That summer he went to the Atlanta Olympic Games, but Clemente did not call him up for the Euro Cup with this argument: “You are in a greater hurry than me.” De la Fuente could count on Lamine Yamal and Pau Curbasí for this European Championship in Germany, two boys of 16 and 17 years old who could even start in Germany against Italy or Croatia.
Pau Cubarsí in the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper in the background. / JAVI FERRÁNDIZ
The quarry model: La Masia or Valdebebas
Once the coach’s affinity for a club has been ruled out, the other variant is the club model and the ways in which each player understands the youth team. last weekend Real Madrid beat at El Sadar (2-4) with only one Spanish player who can be called up in the eleven, Dani Carvajal. 24 hours later, Barcelona inflicted on Atlético its toughest defeat at home since it played in the Metropolitano with Cubarsí (17 years old), Fort (17 years old), Fermín (20) and Lamal (16), who entered the second half. It seems obvious that each has a different strategy regarding the weight of the youth team in the club and in the starting team.
De la Fuente, who does not mind calling up the Barça ‘girls’, has called in the 12 games he has been as coach to three Real Madrid players, two of them on a recurring basis. And it so happens that the three he has counted on are footballers who have returned to Real Madrid after leaving the club to work out or look for a life: Dani Carvajal (he went to Germany), his brother-in-law Joselu (he went through the Bundelisga, the Premier, First and Second), and Fran García (he went to Vallecas to make a name for himself). Added to them are the cases of Lucas Vázquez (return to Espanyol) or Brahim (return to Milan), the only case being Nacho, a player who has not moved from Madrid and has remained in the squad as ‘one club man’.
If you look further, Luis Aragonés led the change that began the path to success by betting on young people. In his first major tournament as a coach, Luis opted to give responsibility to boys like Sergio Ramos (19 years old), Cesc Fábregas (18 years old), and Andrés Iniesta or Fernando Torres (22 years old). His midfield, Xabi (24), Cesc (18) and Xavi (26), was 69 years old on the day they faced France then, almost thirty younger than Makelele, Vieira and Zidane (97). And Cesc, who debuted at 19 years and 301 days with Spain, had made his debut with Arsenal at 16 years and 177 days.
Atlético’s most renowned youth player, Fernando Torres, debuted in 2003 at the age of 19 with Iñaki Sáez as coach. Today other young athletes are knocking on the door: Rodrigo Riquelme, Pablo Barrios, Samu Omorodion… The first has already made his debut in the national team after making a living with assignments to the Premier, First and Second, the second will do so when he establishes himself in Simeone’s eleven, and the third is a 9 that De la Fuente likes and is a permanent for Santi Denia in the U-21 while he makes a name for himself at Alavés.
It is clear, therefore, that There has always been a place for young people in the national team. and that it is the players who get up early to join the teams and to the senior team with their performance. The color of their shirt is a situation that depends more on the youth team model than on the courage of the coaches to put in young players. And for example there is Real Madrid, where Carlo Ancelotti has a starting attack made up of Jude Bellingham (20 years old), Vinicius Júnior (23) and Rodrygo Goes (23). It’s a matter of talent, not age.
2024-03-20 09:32:47
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