Real Madrid goalkeeper, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Iker-Casillas-c16815, stated that Barcelona should not boast about their use of home-grown talent and also defended Real’s academy.
There has been a long and a heated debate about the different strategies the two clubs have adopted regarding their youth academy.
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Barcelona-c38604 seem to be the side that is more committed to its use of academy players in the starting line-up. Recently, they managed to field a team of 11 players from La Masia.
On the other hand, Jose Mourinho has been heavily criticised for being hesitant to use youngsters in his first-team squad.
However, Casillas does not agree with that analysis and instead thinks it is more of a cyclical thing rather than something that is absolute.
“Well, there’s this whole thing about Barcelona playing 11 players from their academy, but I remember 11 or 12 years ago when they played with 11 foreigners.”
“These things come in cycles, and they cannot be showing off now that they have 11 home-grown players.”
The shot-stopper said Barcelona cannot just start boasting off about what they are currently enjoying. He revealed that few years back, there were hardly any players from the Barca’s youth system that could feature in the regular team.
“The slogan they put out now communicates that, but years ago there were hardly any home-grown players, when Puyol and Xavi started.”
The Spaniard then turned his attention to Los Blancos and its youth policy. Casillas said that he would love to see more players graduating from the academy and getting their way into the first-team.
However, the 31-year-old also highlighted that Madrid are a huge club that has an international following and because of that sometimes the club must buy the players they need from abroad.
“At Madrid of course I would like see more from the club come through, but Madrid is an important club that wants the best players in the world and sometimes the best have to come from abroad.”
Real Madrid are trying to bridge the gap in the league as they currently are on the third position and 11 points behind their arch-rivals and league leaders, Barcelona.
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