4 Types of Club for Youth Development
To be able to make it as a professional footballer, a combination of talent, good fortune and a relentless work ethic is needed. For young players, it’s important that there is a healthy and supportive environment that promotes a pathway into the first team.
Getting opportunities as a young player can be extremely difficult. The landscape of European football currently means teams are heavily invested in youth recruitment for academies both domestic and European.
It’s a trend now for academy players to seek opportunities to play first team football abroad.
Upon the history of recruitment clubs will have gained some form of reputation in terms of youth development.
These clubs however all different in terms of where they rank the importance of youth development.
Clubs that emphasise academy graduates:
These clubs have a specific philosophy when it comes to their young talent. The polices are often defined differently but some have been defined in such a way that they have as a result generated.
Anderlecht is one club that instantly springs to mind. The academy system is always prepared to evolve and assimilate its methods in order to match the demands of the modern game.
35% of the Belgian 2018 World Cup squad were originally members of the impressive academy.
The most notable graduates include Vincent Kompany, Romelu Lukaku, Marouane Fellaini, Dries Mertens and Youri Tielemans.
Perhaps one of the most unique clubs to fall under this category is Athletic Bilbao. Many will be aware of the Basque-player policy implemented at the club. They look to rely on local talent to supplement the first team regularly.
Former player and current sporting director Jose Amorrotu spoke of how they “have 20 scouts around the Biscay area and we also have 150 brother-clubs in the region that monitor the progress of youngsters”
A strong emphasis on connection with the grassroots level in the community has allowed the likes of Aymeric Laporte, Ander Herrera, Javi Martinez and current Spain number 1 Unai Simon to graduate.
The obvious advantage is that money is saved and circulated through the community. Financially, they are also able to command larger fees for their home-grown products.
The most influential and most successful of these Academy-emphasised clubs is AFC Ajax.
Perhaps the most well-known clubs who emphasise the development of youth. The Ajax academy look to have 3 players progress into the AFC Ajax senior side every 2 seasons.
The policy and guidelines surrounding their academy could arguably be seen as the best in Europe and has been dubbed for a long time as the breeding ground for Dutch football.
Ajax also endeavours to develop good and respectable human beings. They boast one of the best education programmes in the world, ensuring academy players are always on their best behaviour.
Ajax’s success of their academy can only be exemplified in the super invincible side of 1995. With 8 of the 16 of the Ajax squad in the European final having been academy graduates.
They also like to recruit foreign talent early and provide a platform for them to develop their qualities; notable names include Jan Vertonghen, Thomas Vermaelen, Toby Alderweireld, Luis Suarez and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Although the league is rich in quality, this opportunity is limited as there aren’t a lot of teams that will think your good enough unless they’ve seen you in Europe competitions.
They roughly have a €40,000 a week salary cap also which compared to the rest of the top teams in the rest European divisions will make them less appealing at some point for a young player who wants to develop and progress.
Overall, academy-emphasised clubs tend to focuses heavily on the development of the youth ensuring their club develops quality players and quality human beings that the fanbase can be proud of.
Scout-to-sell clubs:
The title in itself is pretty self-explanatory. Clubs using this model look to recruit exciting young players across the globe and bring them in for relatively low prices in regards to the market and then sell on for maximum possible profit.
The title itself doesn’t do the strategy favours almost making it sound as if these clubs use these players and see them as commodities which to be honest is the thought process for man clubs nowadays.
These models are often used by Portuguese and French clubs. Sporting Lisbon and Benfica are the most significant users of this model in Portugal.
Players like Joao Felix who was discarded by Porto for being too small, Benfica took him on their books, he broke into the first team at a young age scoring an incredible amount of goals, wins the prestigious Golden Boy award and sold to Atletico for a mighty £114.48m.
Benfica have previously scouted and sold players like Axel Witsel, Victor Lindelöf and Angel Di Maria. Between 2010 and 2020 they have generated nearly €1.2B in transfer revenue. With a net transfer profit of €600m in net transfer profit.
Ligue 1 gave the most minutes to players under 21 years old with around 62,000 minutes which is double the minutes for the premier league (approx. 29,000) and almost triple the La Liga clubs (approx. 23,000).
LOSC Lille are the best example of this type of model in my opinion. Whilst they do provide a pathway for their own homegrown talents like Lucas Digne and Yohan Cabaye, they have been known to raid the Belgian border and pick up talent there too.
Divock Origi, Eden Hazard and Kevin Mirallas are all examples of their scouting foraging in Belgium.
Their best scout to sell example is Nicolas Pepe bought in for €3M from Angers SCO and sold for €80M to Arsenal within a 2-year period. He arrived at Lille July 1st 2017 and arrived at Arsenal August 1st 2019.
It shows that upon arrival you are in the shop window and Lille always are prepared to sell. They also provide a place for players who need to restart their career but has some value, like Renato Sanches.
LOSC Lille are the current Ligue 1 Champions, which is testament to the level of quality they have. These players have all made a name for themselves beating PSG to the French crown.
As a result, Mike Maignan, Boubakary Soumare and skilful winger Luiz Arujo have all departed ahead of the 21/22 season. All-important starters in that 20/21 League winning side.
Two of the top leagues in Europe that offers a platform and easily put into the shop window, almost every player has a price especially following the recent loss of sponsorship revenue for the division.
This is surely a healthy environment for young talented players to develop and hone their craft. Knowing that should an opportunity to progress to a bigger club or more attractive division, the Portuguese and French Leagues are a good opportunity for development.
The Regular contenders
These clubs are regular contenders for the top places in their domestic division. These teams rely on a smart strategy to compete with title rivals.
So, clubs like Atalanta, AS Monaco and Borussia Dortmund recruit talented young players in order to compete regularly at the top end of the table and to participate regularly in Europe.
AS Monaco have looked to change strategy and follow a model of recruitment that mirrors the dealings of the Red Bull football group.
AS Monaco ownership like Red Bull have ownership over more than one club; Their acquisition of Cercle Brugge.
AS Monaco’s head of recruitment Lawrence Stewart stated to Training Ground Guru Podcast how the squad “will have a large element of young talent, because that’s one of our core principles.
Monaco have always picked up talented youngsters. Their best example is their youthful vibrant 2016/17 squad that lifted Ligue 1 and reached the semi-final of the UEFA Champions League.
A squad incredibly rich in young talent at the time including players like Kylian Mbappe, Fabinho, Bernado Silva and Thomas Lemar.
An example of offering competitive football as well as competing in the biggest competitions regularly.
When players want to leave these clubs won’t just look to sell at any sort of profit margin but look to let the player go for a fixed price on their terms.
The best example is Dortmund. They stood firm in their valuations of their best transfer outgoings like Shinji Kagawa, Christian Pulisic, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Ousmane Dembele and of recently Jadon Sancho.
In the 20/21 season Dortmund fielded the most U21 players (8) and gave them the most minutes at 7.620.
All players who provided a committed service for Dortmund contributing to either some silverware or regular title challenges and progression in Champions League campaigns.
Dortmund could be seen as ‘’Kings of the Margins’’ although their stubbornness in valuation mainly arises from a desire to get as much possible to stay towards the top end in their division and in Europe.
The regular contender clubs are interesting. There is no doubt you will find some world class talent here which can only be verified by the fact they contribute to some silverware or a title charge in the domestic division.
These clubs will have strong fixed valuations which may mean long drawn out transfer sagas much like Jadon Sancho’s 2 year wait to finally end up at Old Trafford.
Big Clubs
Speaking of Old Trafford Brings us perfectly into the ‘’big club’’ category of clubs that in my opinion gives players an opportunity for long careers at the highest level possible.
No other clubs come to mind than FC Barcelona and Manchester United. Two clubs who boast healthy trophy cabinets as a result of their philosophy of giving young players a chance both homegrown and foreign.
The infamous La Masia is deserving of its reputation Barcelona haven’t been shy to spend some money on young foreign talents also to give them a chance to achieve greatness within the pressures of their huge expectations.
Players like Neymar, Arthur, Ousmane Dembele and Frenkie De Jong are more recent examples.
In the 20/21 season Barca fielded the highest percentage of U21 players (15%) in La Liga.
With Manchester United it’s amazing that a homegrown talent has been involved in every matchday squad since 1937.
If we look at Manchester in recent years all the way up to date. The effort put into the development of youth is phenomenal.
Manchester United at U23 and U18 level are bringing in talent from the academy of big clubs spending a budget Hannibal Mejbri, Charlie McNeil, Alvaro Fernandez and Dillon Hoogewerf all brought in to develop at this big club.
Ahead of the 21/22 Campaign Manchester United’s registered Premier League squad includes 16 academy graduates.
What’s interesting with these big clubs is even if you are unable to become a regular squad member there is a greater employability rate for players who have had their education at these clubs.
You’ll find a lot of ex-United academy players dotted around the Premier League and Championship. The same with Barcelona seeing a lot of them dotted around the big European Leagues.
Applying your trade at a big club is sure to reap some high rewards for a young player in terms of their career longevity.