Scouts and Academies are a key to success in modern soccer, but which are the best? That is what you will find out today.
10. Real Madrid
Players like Sergio Reguilon and Nacho Fernandez came from La Fábrica, the Real Madrid Youth Academy. Others include Alvaro Morata, Marcos Alonso and Raul de Tomas.
9. Dinamo Zagreb
Dinamo Zagreb, a team in Croatia that you have probably never heard of have scouted some of the best players in the world. Lovren once played on Zagreb, so did Mario Mandzukic, also the legendary Luka Modric started at Zagreb.
8. São Paulo
This team was the starting point for many great brazilian soccer players, including Oscar, Fernandino, and Ronaldo. (Not the Portuguese one, or the other famous portuguese one, the third most famous Ronaldo. Ahh, that was confusing!)
7. Southampton
Football Whispers said “Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, Luke Shaw, Morgan Schneiderlin, Nathaniel Clyne, Sadio Mané and Victor Wanyama are just a few of the rising stars who have been plucked from Southampton after showcasing their potential at St. Mary’s” I also found that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Gareth Bale, and Virgil Van Dijk started their careers at Southampton.
6. Santos
Santos is another team with legendary Brazilian players, it was the first team for the greatest of all time, Pele, it also housed Pepe and Neymar.
5. Man U
Manchester United has been a dominant force in Premier League soccer for a long time, a lot of their success has come from their youth academy. Players like David Beckham, Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard, Paul Pogba, and so many more that I don’t have time to say came from their academy.
4. Bayern Munich
Toni Kross, Thomas Muller, David Alaba and Mats Hummles are some of the more modern players to come from Bayern. But some of the older players are Franz Beckenbauer and Philipp Lahm.
3. Sporting Lisbon
Some of the best players from Sporting Lisbon are Joao Moutinho, Nani, and Cristiano Ronaldo. In fact they renamed their academy Cristiano Ronaldo Academy.
2. Ajax
Ajax has had some wonderful players over the years, including Donny van de Beek, Johan Cryuff and Christen Eriksen. Who are very influential in the soccer world these days and in past days.
1. FC Barcelona
How could we have gone through a list of top academies and scouting networks and not have turned to La Masia, the great Barcelona academy, some of it’s famous graduates include as said by squawka.com “Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, Carles Puyol, Sergio Busquets, Victor Valdés, Gerard Piqué and, yes, Lionel Messi too.” I also was able to find that two great players that are now premier league coaches went through the barcelona academy system, Mikel Arteta and Pep Guardiola.
So that’s it, hope to find you reading the next blog post, bye!
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