Manuel Ángel and David Jiménez: Rising Stars of Real Madrid's La Fábrica

Inside Valdebebas, two players keep working as if the season depended on it. For them, it doesn’t. Not here, at least.

Manuel Ángel and David Jiménez continue to train hard at "La Fábrica", fully aware that their futures lie away from Real Madrid. They are waiting. So are the clubs watching them. Interest has arrived from Spain’s first and second tiers and from several European leagues. Now it is about timing and the right offer.

The club knows what is coming. Revenues from academy sales have already reached a record 199 million euros, and the pair are next in line to follow Jacobo Ortega out of Valdebebas. That is why they have disappeared from Castilla’s friendlies and official match squads. The reason is simple: no one wants a late tackle to ruin a decisive transfer, a precaution reported by Spanish newspaper AS.

Manuel Ángel: the mastermind ready to move

Manuel Ángel already stood at the exit door last summer. Levante pushed hardest, Aston Villa tried to lure him away as well, but the midfielder decided to stay one more year and grow under Álvaro Arbeloa and then López de Lerma.

He did more than that. He wore the captain’s armband, led that famous treble-winning generation, and finished the season stepping into the first-team environment. Seven appearances, 129 minutes. That was all he needed to show his game belongs at a higher level than the third tier.

Now 22, 170 centimetres tall and a Real Madrid academy player since 2014, Manuel is one of the standout products of the group that lit up "La Fábrica": Nico Paz, Gonzalo, Palacios, Jacobo Ramón… and him. Arbeloa once described him as "a player who completely changes the course of a match". Inside Valdebebas, few disagree.

He is not imposing physically, but he runs a midfield with his brain and his technique. He uses both feet with such ease that he takes free kicks with either. Around the academy, staff joke that "even he himself does not know whether he is right-footed or left-footed".

Twelve years after first walking into Valdebebas, the admiration has turned into something more concrete. The expectation now is that the interest circling him will crystallise into formal bids and finally open the door to the next stage of his career.

David Jiménez: Arbeloa’s right-hand man on the flank

If Manuel is the mind, David Jiménez is the surge. Another pillar of that treble generation, the right-back piled up close to 20 assists in that remarkable season, attacking from deep with relentless intent.

Inside the academy, many refer to him as Arbeloa’s right-hand man on the pitch. They talk about "the best right foot in the academy". He is the archetype of the modern attacking full-back: aggressive in the final third, dangerous from dead balls, and calm enough in possession to look like a midfielder when the game slows down.

"He surges forward with all his might, he has the personality of a leader and the touch of Carvajal." That is the internal verdict at Valdebebas. His character mirrors that of Arbeloa, the childhood idol who later became one of his strongest supporters.

Born in 2004, at the club since 2013 and standing 1.70 metres, Jiménez also tasted first-team football last season. He played 153 minutes, 91 of them under Xabi Alonso, and left a clear impression on the coaching staff. Those minutes, those runs, those crosses: enough to convince many that he is ready to step beyond the Real Madrid bubble.

Now he waits for the move that will light the fuse on his professional career. Inside the academy, there is quiet confidence that the spark is imminent.

A summer that breaks the 200 million barrier

Their departures will not just close a chapter for two academy leaders. They will also push Real Madrid’s youth system into historic financial territory.

With the 10 million euros received for Jacobo Ortega already taking the tally to 199 million, the exits of Manuel Ángel and David Jiménez will drive academy sale revenues beyond the 200 million euros mark this summer. At Valdebebas, some had already whispered about a "historic summer". It has arrived.

The list of sales underlines the scale of the operation: 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, the club has kept slices of future sale rights for many of them, and there is strong interest in others such as Sisteró, Yáñez and Juan Martínez.

The conveyor belt keeps turning. The numbers keep climbing. For Manuel Ángel and David Jiménez, the next step is no longer about potential or projections. It is about where they choose to prove that "La Fábrica" really did shape two players ready to leave the academy and start dictating games — and seasons — somewhere else.