Manuel Ángel and David Jiménez: Next Big Exits from Real Madrid's Academy
Inside Valdebebas, two players train as if a debut is coming. In reality, a goodbye is getting closer.
Manuel Ángel and David Jiménez are still working at full tilt in “La Fábrica”, but everyone at Real Madrid knows their future lies elsewhere. The club does too. With serious interest from Spain’s top two divisions and from abroad, the pair are waiting for the offer that finally unlocks the next step of their careers.
They have already been pulled out of Castilla friendlies and official games, a deliberate move from the club to avoid injuries that could derail any transfer, as reported by AS. In a summer where the academy has become a financial machine, they are the next big sales on the production line.
Manuel Ángel: the brain ready to move on
Manuel Ángel could have gone a year ago. Levante pushed hardest, Aston Villa also tried to lure him away, but the midfielder chose to stay and lead for one more season.
He wore the captain’s armband under Álvaro Arbeloa and then López de Lerma, and finished the campaign brushing shoulders with the first team. Seven appearances, 129 minutes. That was all he needed to show that his game belongs at a higher level than the third tier.
Now 22, 1.70m tall and a Real Madrid player since 2014, he is one of the standout names of the so‑called treble generation guided by Arbeloa, a group that also produced Nico Paz, Gonzalo, Palacios and Jacobo Ramón. Arbeloa once summed him up simply: “a player who completely changes the course of a match”.
He does it without towering over anyone. His influence comes from his reading of the game and a rare two-footed mastery. He hits free kicks with right or left, so naturally that staff at Valdebebas joke that even he doesn’t know which is his stronger foot.
Twelve years after arriving at the academy, the admiration has turned into concrete interest. Now the expectation is that the phone calls become formal bids, and that the midfielder who dictated games for the youth sides finally writes the first line of his senior career away from Madrid.
David Jiménez: Arbeloa’s enforcer on the flank
If Manuel Ángel is the mind, David Jiménez is the surge of energy down the right. Another pillar of that treble generation, the full-back piled up close to 20 assists in that remarkable season and has been terrorising left-backs ever since.
Inside the academy they call him Arbeloa’s right-hand man on the pitch and talk about “the best right foot in the academy”. The description fits: an attacking full-back by instinct, a constant threat in the final third, set-piece specialist and as calm on the ball as a central midfielder.
“He surges forward with all his might, he has the personality of a leader and the touch of Carvajal,” is the internal verdict at Valdebebas. His character mirrors that of Arbeloa, his childhood idol and later his most vocal supporter.
Born in 2004, at Real Madrid since 2013 and also 1.70m, Jiménez made his first-team bow last season, racking up 153 minutes, 91 of them under Xabi Alonso. It was enough to leave a strong impression on the technical staff. The feeling around the training ground is clear: he has seen enough, learned enough and is ready to step outside the Real Madrid bubble. All he needs now is the move that lights the fuse.
A factory turning talent into over 200 million euros
Their exits will not just be emotional milestones. They will also push an already historic balance sheet into new territory.
Real Madrid’s income from academy sales this summer stands at a record 199 million euros. Once the deals for Manuel Ángel and David Jiménez are closed, the figure will smash through the 200 million barrier. The 10 million euros brought in by the transfer of Jacobo Ortega has already nudged the total to the brink.
Inside Valdebebas, some had quietly predicted a “historic summer”. It has arrived. The club have cashed in heavily on homegrown talent while also keeping percentages of future sales in many cases, a way of staying financially tied to players they can no longer offer minutes to.
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 Sisteró, Yáñez and Juan Martínez.
So the sessions continue at Valdebebas, the two players running, pressing, striking balls as if they were preparing for another season in white. In reality, each drill is a countdown. When the right offer lands, Manuel Ángel’s brain and David Jiménez’s right foot will leave “La Fábrica” behind — and Real Madrid’s academy will chalk up yet another lucrative chapter in its most profitable summer to date.
