Manuel Ángel and David Jiménez: Real Madrid's Rising Stars Set for Departure
Inside Valdebebas, two players keep running, pressing, and passing as if the season were about to start for them. It is not. For Manuel Ángel and David Jiménez, the future is already somewhere else.
Real Madrid have quietly moved them to the departure lounge. No friendlies with Castilla, no official minutes, just training and waiting. The club do not want to risk an injury now, not when interest is strong from LaLiga, Segunda and several European leagues, and not in a summer when academy sales have become a business line of their own.
The next two deals will push that business into historic territory.
Manuel Ángel, the brain ready to move on
Manuel Ángel should probably have gone a year ago. Levante pushed hardest, Aston Villa also tried to lure him away, and there were other suitors. He stayed. One more season. One more shot at forcing the door open from within.
He did his part. Under Álvaro Arbeloa and then López de Lerma, he wore the captain’s armband and grew into the role. By the end of the campaign he was spending more time with the first team, clocking up seven appearances and 129 minutes. Not a huge number, but enough to show that his game belongs at a higher level than the third tier.
At 22, 1.70m tall and a Real Madrid academy player since 2014, he is one of the standard-bearers of the famous treble generation led by Arbeloa, a group that also featured Nico Paz, Gonzalo, Palacios and Jacobo Ramón. Arbeloa once summed him up simply: “a player who completely changes the course of a match”.
That is his profile. Small, but in control. He runs games with his head, not his size. Two-footed to the point of confusion, he hits free-kicks with right or left, so much so that staff at Valdebebas joke that even he does not know which is his stronger foot.
Twelve years after walking into La Fábrica, the jokes are giving way to something more serious. Interest is no longer just talk. The expectation inside the club is that the phone calls turn into formal offers very soon, opening a new chapter away from Madrid for one of their most polished midfield products.
David Jiménez, Arbeloa’s ‘right hand’ on the pitch
From the organiser in the middle to the weapon on the flank. David Jiménez, another pillar of that treble-winning generation, brought chaos to opposition defences from right-back, finishing that standout season just shy of 20 assists.
At Valdebebas, they call him Arbeloa’s right-hand man. Not by chance. Many there insist he has “the best right foot in the academy”. He plays as an attacking full-back in the purest sense: high, aggressive, relentless. A threat on every set piece. Calm enough on the ball to look like a midfielder, ruthless enough in the final third to look like a winger.
Inside the academy they describe him in one sweeping line: “He surges forward with all his might, he has the personality of a leader and the touch of Carvajal.” His temperament mirrors Arbeloa’s own, the man who went from childhood idol to one of his strongest supporters on the touchline.
Born in 2004, in the academy since 2013, the 1.70m defender also tasted the top. He played his last 153 minutes with the first team last season, 91 of them under Xabi Alonso, and left a clear impression on the coaching staff.
Now he waits, like Manuel Ángel, for the right offer. The feeling around him is that he has already outgrown the protective bubble of Real Madrid’s academy. One decisive move, and his career could ignite.
A factory that prints talent – and money
All of this unfolds against a backdrop that would have been unthinkable not long ago. La Fábrica is not just feeding the first team; it is funding the club.
Academy sales have already reached a record 199 million euros. When the deals for Manuel Ángel and David Jiménez are completed, that figure will smash through the 200 million barrier. The 10 million euros from the sale of Jacobo Ortega has already nudged the total just under the line.
People inside Valdebebas had spoken of a “historic summer”. It sounded like a slogan. It is now a balance sheet.
The list of departures is striking: Nico Paz (60 million euros), Gonzalo (40 million), Víctor Muñoz (20.5 million), Gila (15 million), Álvaro Rodríguez (12.5 million), Álex Jiménez (12.5 million), Palacios (10 million), Jacobo Ortega (10 million), Fran García (4 million), Mario Martín (3 million) and Fran González (3 million). On top of that, there is strong interest in others such as Sisteró, Yáñez and Juan Martínez, and Madrid have kept slices of future sale rights in many of these moves.
The model is clear. Develop, showcase, sell – and, when possible, keep a foot in the door for the next big transfer.
So Manuel Ángel and David Jiménez keep working behind closed doors, waiting for the call that will end their time at Valdebebas and swell that ever-rising total. For Real Madrid, their exits are another step in a lucrative strategy. For the two players, they are the moment when La Fábrica finally stops being home and becomes the springboard it was always meant to be.
