While it is a path to success for Los Blancos, they have often been criticised for their use of their own academy players, or actually the lack of it. Like top and elite clubs, Real Madrid too have their own academy in La Fabrica. In English it means ‘The Factory’.
The academy has produced some of the best talents over the years, but these bright spots rarely ever make it to the first team or even their second or reserve team, Real Madrid Castilla.
Raul, Iker Casillas, Brahim Diaz, and to some extent Vinicius Jr. are some of the top produces of the academy and the reserve team. Making the headlines these days is another promising young footballer stepping up to the first team training on a regular basis.
Jeremy de Leon is an exciting 20 year-old winger from Puerto Rico who has been called up to accompany Real Madrid’s first team on a regular basis now. Currently playing for Castilla in the third division of Spanish football, Jeremy is showing his quality with the reserves and impressively proving to be full of skills and tricks and blistering pace.
Even though Jeremy has been training with the best of Real Madrid, he is yet to make an appearance for the first team. He was even seen traveling and in the training sessions with the squad leading up to the first leg of their Champions League Semi Final clash away to Bayern Munich, where again he wasn’t called upon from the bench or to make the final squad for that matter.
So many times has de Leon been seen training and accompanying the squad that fans wonder what does he even do with the team if he is not going to have a chance to play or to come on to the pitch off the bench. Some of the Madrid aficionados are puzzled about his signing altogether and question his mysterious presence with the team.
However, it’s fair to say that it will take time for Jeremy to break into the first team dynamics as he is currently finding his feet at Castilla too. Not having made a lot of appearances from the start for the reserves, de Leon, as much of a big of a talent he is, is not even the highest earners in the reserve squad. Earning close to 1000 pounds per week and about 57,000 pounds per year, he is not even among the top 10, thus underlining his status within the team.
None of it is to say that he won’t be featuring alongside Bellingham and co. anytime soon. Even with so little experience with the reserves, he did make it to the squad didn’t he? Who’s to say with the likes of Nico Paz, Alvaro Rodriguez also getting their chances with the first team, we might actually get a good look at Jeremy de Leon as Real Madrid chase another impressive Champions League and LaLiga double.