Inside the Villarreal academy that produced Rodri, Nicolas Jackson and Alex Baena
2025-01-07
Category: sports

The bosses at Villarreal want to make it very clear. There is not one "magic" reason behind the academy that produced Ballon d'Or winner Rodri.Villarreal are from a small industrial city of the same name in eastern Spain with a population of 50,000.Yet, despite a catchment area about the size of Yeovil, the academy has trained world-renowned stars like Rodri, Nicolas Jackson, Pau Torres and their current Spain winger Alex Baena.Over the past 25 years Villarreal's academy graduates have helped establish the club as perennial overachievers.Their first season in the top tier of Spanish football was in 1998-99.Since then they have qualified for Europe 19 times, reached the last four of the Champions League on three occasions - in 2006, 2016 and 2022 - and even beat Manchester United in the 2021 Europa League final.This season, a rare one without European football, they're overachieving again.The club, nicknamed the Yellow Submarines, are fifth - battling Athletic Bilbao for La Liga's best of the rest slot, behind Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid and Barcelona.But Villarreal chief executive Fernando Roig stressed to BBC Sport no single person at the club "is a magician"."We have not hired Ted Lasso to make a big change," he said.So how do Villarreal do it then?
Villarreal 'is like your second family'
In a way maybe Villarreal and AFC Richmond, the team managed by American Ted Lasso in the hit comedy series, aren't too dissimilar.Both are small clubs who rely on a sense of togetherness to compete with much bigger teams around them.For Villarreal it's built from the ground up.The youth academy has about 800 players across 45 teams - 39 boys teams and six girls teams. When Villarreal won the Europa League four years ago, 16 members of the squad had come through the club's youth set-up.Their main base is the Jose Manuel LLaneza training ground which opened in 1998. More than 100 academy players permanently live on the site which even has its own mini stadium.It has a very large footprint and is part of the reason why Villarreal has more football pitches per resident than any other Spanish city."I think when you live at this club the first thing you feel is it's like your second family," winger Baena, who has been at Villarreal since he was 10, told BBC Sport."Even though it is a small town we have better facilities here than other clubs."Baena, now 23, is the latest Villarreal academy success. He was in the Spain squads that won the Euros and Olympic Gold in 2024. Only Barcelona's Lamine Yamal has more assists in La Liga than him this season.
Villarreal is 'part of Rodri's development'
When he was in Villarreal's youth team Baena was inspired by senior players Santi Carzola and Gerard Moreno. The next generation are mostly looking up to him and one other - Manchester City midfielder Rodri.Villarreal view the four-time Premier League and Champions League winner as one of their own."He grew with us," said Roig. "We are a part of his development; he came when he was 16-years-old. He had not played the year before at Atletico Madrid."After five seasons Rodri headed back to Atletico Madrid in 2018 and the following season he joined Manchester City in a Â£62m deal. The rest is history.Rodri scored the winner in the 2023 Champions League final for City against Inter Milan, and was instrumental in Spain's Euros win last summer.In October, he was awarded the 2024 Ballon d'Or, the most prestigious individual accolade in world football.And it was a trophy celebrated by Villarreal.The best player in the world, you say? Raised in a small city in eastern Spain about the size of Yeovil.