President Florentino Perez Risking History by Cutting Real Madrid Academy

An often-told story in Spanish football is the one where Atletico Madrid let Raul Gonzalez jump ship to their nearest rivals for free.

The Spanish striker, who went on to score over 300 goals for Real Madrid, was one of many young players to leave Atleti in the early 1990s, when Jesus Gil decided to save cash and cut the club's "Cantera"—the generic word for a youth system within Spain.

Now, over 20 years later, Madrid president Florentino Perez has announced that he intends to make similar cuts at the Bernabeu, as reported by Alvaro de la Rosa of newspaper AS:

The goal is to reduce the number of teams in the Cantera. We studied that Castilla and Madrid C should merge and we want to reduce the 'Juveniles' teams to one.

That means the plan is to cut three whole teams from the setup: Real Madrid C, Juvenil B and Juvenil C.

In theory, the idea has some justification: Why have three Juvenil teams when you can have one that incorporates the best players? And why have a B and a C team when, likewise, you can have one that houses the creme de la creme?

The players would still come through the system in their early teens as normal, with the best ones then continuing in their mid-late teens.

However, in practice, it wouldn't necessarily work like this.

Just a couple of seasons ago, Jose Mourinho would occasionally include defender Diego Llorente or midfielder Jose Rodriguez in his first-team squad. At the time, both were playing for Madrid C—would they have been released under Perez's proposed plans?

Rodriguez is now on loan at La Liga side Deportivo la Coruna, while Llorente is a regular in the Real Madrid Castilla side.

Players develop at different speeds and an average player at 16 might have become a fantastic player by 18. Again, in Perez's plans, they may not have the chance to become fantastic at Real Madrid.

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, when Gil hacked into Atletico's youth system for the sake of economics, Los Rojiblancos lost out on Raul—would Real Madrid really want to let the next Raul, potentially, walk away?

Of course, in Perez's defence, there is certainly an argument to be made that something needs to be done to improve Real Madrid's Cantera.

Since Raul and Iker Casillas, only a handful of locally produced players have made their debuts with the first team—and that includes Raul Bravo.

Recently things have started to look better, though.

Nacho Fernandez and Dani Carvajal, who had a brief spell with Bayer Levekusen first, have been regulars with the first-team squad this season, while Jese Rodriguez will be too once he returns from injury.

Alvaro Morata had been listed with those three as well, but he moved to Juventus this summer, joining the likes of Juan Mata, Roberto Soldado and Alvaro Negredo on a different list: Players not to make it at the Bernabeu after coming through the Cantera.

The problem Madrid have is that over on Spain's north-east coast, Barcelona continue to breed players for their first team.

Already this season, Luis Enrique has handed debuts to forwards Munir El Haddadi, Sandro Ramirez and, on Wednesday night in the Champions League, midfielder Sergi Samper.

Barca is a unique case, though, and it is certainly not the norm for European clubs to produce so much young talent.

Madrid and Perez's response shouldn't be to streamline their Cantera. That is not the answer. They need to invest in the right coaches, then they need a president and a first-team coach who are prepared to spend time bringing these teenagers through and giving them opportunities.

But while Perez continues to go on with his Galactico policy, he may well feel inclined to do a bit of penny-pinching elsewhere despite the club recently posting revenue of £480 million, per the Daily Mail.