Ground Capacity 2,500 League División de Honor | Coach Jon Mikel Arrieta President Jokin Aperribay | |
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Full name Real Sociedad de Fútbol, S.A.D. Nickname(s) Txuriurdin (White and Blue)
Erreala / La Real (The Royals) Ground Zubieta Facilities,
San Sebastián,
Basque Country, Spain | ||
The cantera (quarry) of Spanish professional football club Real Sociedad is the organisation's youth academy, developing players from childhood through to the integration of the best prospects into the adult teams.
Contents
- Background and structure
- National competitions
- International tournaments
- Head coaches
- Juvenil A
- Juvenil B Easo
- Superliga Liga de Honor sub 19
- Divisin de Honor Juvenil
- Honours
- References
The final category within the youth structure is the Juvenil A [(Basque: Gazteak A) under-18/19 team team which represents the club in national competition. The successful graduates then usually move to the club's reserve teams, Real Sociedad C or Real Sociedad B, which are also considered part of the cantera due to being a stage in progression towards the senior team, albeit competing in the adult league system.
The academy is based at the club training complex, Zubieta, which is often the name used informally to refer to the system itself.
Background and structure
The top football clubs in the Spanish leagues generally place great importance in developing their cantera to promote the players from within or sell to other clubs as a source of revenue, and Real Sociedad is no exception. Until the late 1980s, the club operated a Basque-only player recruitment policy but abandoned this in order to remain competitive; however their youth recruitment network is still focused around their home region of Gipuzkoa and there are collaboration agreements in place with the small clubs in the region.
Most of the current senior team players are youth academy graduates (15 of the squad in 2014 ). In 2016, Real Sociedad's total of 16 homegrown players (as per UEFA guidelines, 3 years of training between 15 and 21 years old) still at their formative club was the second-highest across Europe's 'big five' leagues, and far more than all other top clubs apart from neighbours Athletic Bilbao. Adding 9 former trainees at other eligible clubs for a sum of 25 ranked as the 5th highest, although only 3rd in Spain behind Real Madrid and FC Barcelona who retained just a few of the many high-level players they produced. In 2013 it was also noted that 22 of the 23 members of the Juvenil A squad that season were from Gipuzkoa.
Real Sociedad's good standing in La Liga in recent years - including qualifying for the 2013-14 UEFA Champions League - has thus been achieved using a large proportion of homegrown players, with the vast majority of those hailing from the local region (which has a population of just 715,000, a small catchment area for an elite football club, and with that potential pool of talent drained further by frequent swoops for the best youngsters by Athletic Bilbao), indicating a very high standard of coaching and development of the young players at their disposal. A notable exception to this local focus was Antoine Griezmann from France who was integrated into the setup at a young age after his potential was identified by Real staff at an event.
The core of boys from the Gipuzkoa region are first introduced into the Zubieta Alevín teams at around 10 years of age and advance by an age group every season through Infantil, Cadete and Juvenil levels. The players who are retained by Real after their Juvenil A spell (aged about 17) would typically join Real Sociedad C - a recent addition to the club structure - with that squad normally expanded further with some signings from the regions’s youth clubs such as Antiguoko, a small San Sebastián team who regularly challenge the professional youth teams for the title in their División de Honor group.
The players usually spend one or two seasons at Real C before the best progress to the reserve team Sanse and then on to the senior team when considered ready to do so.
National competitions
The Juvenil A team play in Group II of the División de Honor Juvenil de Fútbol as their regular annual competition. Their main rivals in the league group are Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna. The under-17 team, Juvenil B or Easo (named after a nickname for San Sebastián which itself derives from the nearby Roman town of Oiasso), plays in the Liga Nacional Juvenil de Fútbol which is the lower division of the same structure.
The team also regularly participates in the Copa de Campeones and the Copa del Rey Juvenil, qualification for which is dependent on final league group position. In these nationwide competitions the opposition includes the academy teams of Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Sevilla and Real Madrid.
International tournaments
In 2012–13 Real Sociedad's senior team qualified for the UEFA Champions League group stages, meaning that the Juvenil squad could play in the 2013–14 version of the UEFA Youth League. They finished top of their group in the competition but were eliminated from the knockout stage by Schalke 04.
In the subsequent years there has been no further chance to participate due to the senior team failing to qualify. The alternative route into the Youth League would be to win the previous season’s Copa de Campeones but Real Juvenil have so far been unable to achieve this.
Head coaches
The coaches are often former Real players who themselves graduated from Zubieta. The director of the academy is another former player, Roberto Olabe - his son (also Roberto) is a Real Sociedad academy graduate, as is Loren Juarros, the club's director of football.
Juvenil A
As of November 2016Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Juvenil B (Easo)
As of January 2017Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Superliga / Liga de Honor sub-19
Seasons with two or more trophies shown in bold
División de Honor Juvenil
Seasons with two or more trophies shown in bold