The jewel of La Fábrica

They had only 11 minutes of matches and a cloud with the same shape that crossed the first team at the Etihad loomed over Real Madrid's Youth A in Nyon. A defensive error forced Raúl's men to make a comeback that eight and a half minutes later, with the expulsion of Jordi, was further encrypted. The mythical 7, tanned in a thousand battles on the pitch, and more than one against rivals with the jersey bianconera, He was trying to lift his own. From the band, he encouraged them to go out and look for Juve under pressure. A quarter of an hour later, theirs were already ahead on the scoreboard.

This youthful Madrid has learned to suffer and to overcome. He has already done it three times in this Youth League. Two comebacks were suffered by PSG in their flesh; the third, Juve in the second round. In the first, the future was at stake in the group stage, against the Italians, to stay alive in one of the few competitions whose trophy Madrid still does not shine in their showcases. This season only Galatasaray have resisted them with a 2-4 that seems like a cursed result for Madrid; the last three eliminations were for that result.

The 2001 generation faces the challenge of winning the first Youth League for Madrid. The Whites are the only team that has reached the last 16 in the seven editions of the tournament, but the title is holding out. The semifinals have been the roof of three layers with illustrious members such as Hermoso, Marcos Llorente, Óscar Rodríguez, Valverde or Achraf, to name a few footballers who have reached the First Division or the Madrid first team itself. The generation of others like Reguilón or Mayoral, for example, did not pass the eighth.

Many of those in Nyon will follow in his footsteps. Without going any further, Baeza, who occupied one of the five places for footballers in 2000, did not travel because he has signed for Celta, leaving 2.5 million euros in Madrid's coffers for 50% of his rights. Miguel Gutiérrez –a winger with a goal who played for half an hour with the first team in the last Audi Cup– and Chust and Blanco (both from 2000) are European Under-19 champions with La Rojita; and Morante and Pablo Ramón, recruited as a youth, are also international. The second, even, arrived at La Fábrica having played two Cup games with Mallorca against a Primera like Valladolid.

Castilla, with a redoubled commitment to youth, have only been able to play two playoffs in the last six seasons since the last relegation. This season's player was seventh, five points from the promotion zone when the League stopped with ten games to go, although in many games the result did not reflect the merits of Raúl's pupils. Juvenil A, on the other hand, has dominated their Honor Division group. After two years in which they were overtaken by Atlético in group V, this season they were leaders with four points ahead of the rojiblancos with five games to go. They had only lost one game, in extremis, in the narrow field of Unión Adarve.

Arribas was the second top scorer in the group with 16 goals and Luis and Toni Fuidias alternated the Courtois goal: less than one goal conceded per game. The pandemic prevented them from finishing the championship and playing the Champions Cup and the King's Cup, which has also resisted the whites in the last two seasons. Now they have a chance to retaliate and become the white pioneers in the Youth League. A still unpublished title to add to the showcases of the new Bernabéu.