With Financial Fair Play and an abundance of nationality quotas to fill, football clubs are becoming more and more concerned about starting up their own production line.
As youth development won’t be included in European clubs’ spending limits, they can pump the money that they would have spent on inflated transfer fees on developing the next crop of wonderkids instead. Some clubs already have the very best facilities in place, while others have scrambled to catch up – Manchester City, for example, who spent £200 million to construct a new home for their ‘Elite Development Squad’ back in 2013.
Their willingness to spend such large figures to ensure that they can compete with the very best set-ups highlights just how important these clubs believe the academy system will be in the future. With transfer fees continuing to climb, a steady stream of homegrown talent will provide clubs with a welcome relief from the insanity of the transfer market. Likewise, an abundance of top level talent will also provide plenty of goods to place in the shop window come January and July.
While plenty more are beginning to make an emergence, here are 11 of the best youth academies in world football:
Real Madrid: La Fabrica
Real Madrid’s prestigious academy has earned itself the nickname ‘The Factory’ due to the abundance of top level talent that it has produced over the years.
Established in the 1950s under club legend Santiago Bernabeu, the Real Madrid Academy helped to transform the club into the powerhouse that it is today. In fact, some of the most dominant Madrid sides in history have featured a core of players bred by their youth system, including the squad that won five consecutive European Cup titles in the 1950s and the 1980s side that won five consecutive La Liga titles.
The academy’s success is largely due to its ability to weed out those that will be unable to compete at the very top, with 13 different squads for youth players to progress through, finishing with Real Madrid Castilla in Spain’s third tier. Those that reach the top of the pyramid are almost guaranteed a future in professional football, with the likes of Alvaro Morata, Jese Rodriguez, Juan Mata and Dani Carvajal coming through in recent times.
Santos F.C. Academy
Brazilian giants Santos are so much more than a football team. The club also boasts teams for American football, futsal, goalball, volleyball and eSports, as well as karate, judo and taekwondo.
Likewise, they also have a women’s side and a very success youth system. With five different age groups, the Santos academy has over 100 youth players on their books at one time, all of which live in at the club’s facilities, with a focus placed on ensuring that the youngsters gain a decent education.
While the academy doesn’t produce a steady stream of truly world class talent all the time, it has produced some of the greatest players to ever grace the game. Most notably, Pelé, who went on to score more than 600 competitive goals for the club on his way to becoming the greatest player of all time.
Other notable alumni include Robinho, who went on to star for Real Madrid and Milan, and Lionel Messi’s brilliant sidekick, Neymar. The latest name on the lips of Europe’s elite is teenage breakthrough Gabriel Barbosa, who has attracted the attention of Manchester United and Barcelona in recent times.
Southampton F.C. Academy
One of British football’s greatest producers in recent times, Southampton have created some brilliant footballers over the years, but one player stands head and shoulders above the rest – Gareth Bale. After seven years in the youth academy, it was The Saints who introduced him to senior football, before Tottenham Hotspur snapped him up for a measly £10 million. Little did they know that he would go on to become one of the best footballers on the planet.
Other notable players include Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamblerain, both picked up by Arsenal during their teenage years, and the likes of Luke Shaw, Calum Chambers and Adam Lallana, who played crucial roles in the standout 2013/14 season, when Southampton finished 8th in just their second season back in the Premier League.
AFC Ajax: De Toekomst
It’s impossible to discuss academy football without Ajax’s famed De Toekomst academy getting a mention. Yet, with graduates such as Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten, Dennis Bergkamp, Frank Rijkaard, Edwin van der Sar and Wesley Sneijder to name a few, it’s no wonder that Ajax are considered among the greatest developers of young talent.
Nicknamed ‘The Future’, the aim of Ajax’s youth academy isn’t necessarily to provide talent to the first-team, but to produce players that can be sold to Europe’s biggest clubs for hefty fees. With silky, control-based football taking a front seat in the modern game, youngsters are taught how to control the ball perfectly from an early age. Those that are unable to up their game each year are thrown on the scrapheap, to make way for the next crop of promising prospects.
Despite the unfathomable pressure placed on their young players, their methods do produce some of the best young players in Europe, with the likes of Christian Eriksen and Memphis Depay having made the jump in recent years to Tottenham and Manchester United respectively.
Dinamo Zagreb: Hitrec-Kacian
While Croatian champions GNK Dinamo Zagreb aren’t able to compete with Europe’s biggest clubs, they have provided some truly world class players to them over the years, producing many of the Croatian national teams very best.
Part of their success is due to the simple fact that youth players are given the chance to thrive in the first-team – from each crop of youngsters, the club aims to integrate at least two into their senior squad.
The result? Dinamo Zagreb boast a homegrown ratio of more than 50% in their first-team, while an abundance of top talent has also brought in a significant amount of money in recent years, with the likes of Luka Modric, Dejan Lovren, Mateo Kovacic and Alen Halilovic all being transferred for considerably large figures.
Bayern Munich Junior Team
1995 saw Bayern Munich overhaul their ageing youth facilities, bringing in a range of coaches, teachers, physios, masseurs and housing assistants to oversee the huge project, now home to more than 160 prospects.
Bayern scout the world for the very best youngsters, before quickly immersing these players into club life. Youth players train at the Sabener Strasse complex, alongside the senior team, meaning that there isn’t much of a leap when it comes to switching from youth football to the professional game.
Keeping the facility running is said to cost Bayern Munich a figure in the region of €3 million a year, yet given the talent that it has produced since it was overhauled, it has proven to be extremely cost effective. Take Thomas Muller, for example, who is easily a £60 million player in today’s market, yet cost the club pennies to develop into a star. Also on their list are Bastian Schweinsteiger, Toni Kroos, Philipp Lahm and David Alaba.
Chelsea F.C. Academy
This one may come as a surprise, given that Chelsea have failed to fully integrate a youth player into the first-team since John Terry way back in 1998. Yes, Chelsea are notoriously bad at giving young talent a chance in their senior side, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t producing talent.
In fact, if trophies are to go by, Chelsea have the greatest youth side in Europe, having won three consecutive FA Youth Cups between 2014 and 2016 and two consecutive UEFA Youth Leagues in 2015 and 2016.
Football fans will have heard of at least a few of these names: Andreas Christensen, Patrick Bamford, Tammy Abraham, Izzy Brown, Dominic Solanke, Ola Aina and the latest breakthrough act, Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Having now technically ‘graduated’ from the academy, all of those players undoubtedly have a future in the professional game, whether that’s at Chelsea or elsewhere.
FK Partizan Academy
While it isn’t among the best in the world for the quality of players that it produces, Partizan Belgrade’s youth academy earns its place on this list for the sheer number of players that find themselves a place in the professional game after graduating through their system.
In 2015, Partizan were judged to be Europe’s biggest producers, having seen 78 youth players go on to play for a senior side, with 13 still at the club and 65 in clubs elsewhere. To put that into perspective, only Ajax are able to keep up with them, having produced 75 players, while Barcelona’s La Masia sit in third with 62 players in the professional game.
With over 400 youngsters training at the academy, it is no wonder that the numbers that they produce are so high, especially given the amount of work that the club put into their academy. While Serbian football is a long way from competing with the likes of La Liga and the Premier League, Partizan’s academy has been recognised as the second best youth set-up in Europe by the CIES Football Observatory, behind only Ajax.
Manchester United Academy
While Manchester United’s reign has subsided somewhat following the retirement of historic manager Sir Alex Ferguson, the legacy that he has left behind will serve the club for years to come. His most notable contribution is the club’s ability to produce an an abundance of homegrown talent following the set-up’s overhaul in 1998.
Since the turn of the decade the club have introduced Darren Fletcher, Adnan Januzaj, Tom Cleverley, John O’Shea, Ryan Shawcross, Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford and Danny Welbeck to professional football.
However, the club were producing talent since long before 1998. Who could forget the incredible Class of ‘92, made up of David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Gary and Phil Neville and Paul Scholes? Throw in Sir Bobby Charlton and George Best and you have one of the greatest youth set-ups of all time.
Sporting Lisbon Academy
When discussing the success of Sporting Lisbon’s youth development, there is really only one place to start – Cristiano Ronaldo. Portugal’s greatest ever player, one of Real Madrid’s greatest ever players and possibly even the greatest ever player of all time.
The academy became the biggest and best in Portugal when it opened back in 1999 and remains so to this day. With numerous training pitches, gyms, treatment rooms and housing facilities to boot, it comes as no surprise that the club produce some of the best players in Europe.
Ronaldo is undoubtedly the club’s best creation, having progressed from Under-16 level to the first-team in the space of a single year. However, he isn’t their only success. Of the 14 players that featured for Portugal in the Euro 2016 final, 10 of them had spent time at the Sporting Lisbon academy. Alongside Ronaldo were the likes of Nani, Ricardo Quaresma, Joao Moutinho, Rui Patricio and William Carvalho, highlighting just how important the club are to the country’s success on the international stage.
FC Barcelona: La Masia
Having saved the best for last, Barcelona’s La Masia academy is undoubtedly the most impressive production line in Europe, solely because of the unimaginable quality that it has produced over the years. In fact, the discovery and development of a small, timid Lionel Messi makes all the money that the club have pumped into youth development worth it. The likes of Carles Puyol, Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Pep Guardiola are added bonuses.
Part of the academy’s success is due to the philosophies that they instill in the youngsters from an early age. They are taught to love and live the club, which wills them on to give it their all on the pitch to ensure that Barcelona remains as one of the very best clubs in Europe.
There have been murmurs of La Masia’s decline in recent years, given the disappointing progress of some very promising youngsters. Take Bojan Krkic, for example, tipped to be the next Lionel Messi, now plying his trade at Stoke City. Yet, even if La Masia fails to produce a top talent for the next decade, it will still be known as one of the greatest youth academies in world football, due to the sheer quality that it has brought into the beautiful game over the years.