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Juventus look towards youth academy to replace ageing squad players
With Juventus's youth academy in full swing after almost 2 full seasons of development, the time is almost upon us for a number of those players to be eligible for a call up to the first team.
League rules state that a player MUST be 20 years old before he can be called up into the first team and at the end of this current season 3 players will fit this criteria.
Portuguese goalkeeper Eduardo, Turkish defender T_Cora & Danish midfielder K_Perez. The 3 of these may or may not be called up but with French defender G_Bussmann & fellow Frenchman and striker K_Benzema set to retire at the end of this campaign (Aged 33 & 37 respectively), but the will need to replace them in order to keep to league standards in terms of squad numbers.
Looking at the reports for the 3 players in question, it's highly unlikely that goalkeeper Eduardo will be called up Juventus already have a backup goalkeeper in 31 year old Rui_Silva. Silva, who is also Portuguese signed this season from Luton Town for £24,000,000 in order to play backup to 23 year old Italian and current Juventus captain M_Carnesecchi, is likely to keep his place and squad number (13) for another few seasons which will give Eduardo time to develop even further.
By this time, the younger Portuguese goalkeeper will have reached the maximum age for an academy player and will have to leave the academy. This could see Rui_Silva pass the torch to his younger counterpart as he heads off into retirement.
As for T_Cora & K_Perez, they're fully expected to be called up into the first team, even if this is to replace Bussmann & Benzema for squad numbers with other, more talented players being developed in the youth academy will be more likely to be called up for footballing reasons.
The gems of the academy seem to be 17 year old defender D_van_Buyten, 17 year old box to box midfielder S_Gerrard and the 18 year old strikeforce of the Juventus youth academy in German M_Klose & Dutch R_Beerens but with them being 1 to 2 years away from being eligible, that's a subject for another time.
Juventus manager Andy Banks gave us his thoughts on the youth academy, the players we've mentioned and the retirement of Bussmann & Benzema:
"While our youth academy isn't the best one out there, it can still serve a purpose for us. When Bussy & Benzie retire in November we'll be 2 players short of the league minimum of 24 players. While other teams seem to dip below 24 on a weekly basis, us here at Juventus always stick to the written rules and so we need 2 players.
Of the 3 players we'll have available from the academy we may take all 3, we may take 1, we may take none and we may take 2. We'll make this decision when the time comes but for now the option is there that we don't have to worry about sourcing players in a transfer market that is growing harder and harder to source these types of players.
As for the rest of the academy, we have some players in there that could have the potential to be more than squad numbers for us, it's unlikely that we'll ever develop them to a level that will make them good enough for the first team but if they can be moved onto a lower level club and earn the club back some of the invested money then it'll all be worth it but it's so far away it's not even worth thinking about for now."
1971/4000 words
With Juventus's youth academy in full swing after almost 2 full seasons of development, the time is almost upon us for a number of those players to be eligible for a call up to the first team.
League rules state that a player MUST be 20 years old before he can be called up into the first team and at the end of this current season 3 players will fit this criteria.
Portuguese goalkeeper Eduardo, Turkish defender T_Cora & Danish midfielder K_Perez. The 3 of these may or may not be called up but with French defender G_Bussmann & fellow Frenchman and striker K_Benzema set to retire at the end of this campaign (Aged 33 & 37 respectively), but the will need to replace them in order to keep to league standards in terms of squad numbers.
Looking at the reports for the 3 players in question, it's highly unlikely that goalkeeper Eduardo will be called up Juventus already have a backup goalkeeper in 31 year old Rui_Silva. Silva, who is also Portuguese signed this season from Luton Town for £24,000,000 in order to play backup to 23 year old Italian and current Juventus captain M_Carnesecchi, is likely to keep his place and squad number (13) for another few seasons which will give Eduardo time to develop even further.
By this time, the younger Portuguese goalkeeper will have reached the maximum age for an academy player and will have to leave the academy. This could see Rui_Silva pass the torch to his younger counterpart as he heads off into retirement.
As for T_Cora & K_Perez, they're fully expected to be called up into the first team, even if this is to replace Bussmann & Benzema for squad numbers with other, more talented players being developed in the youth academy will be more likely to be called up for footballing reasons.
The gems of the academy seem to be 17 year old defender D_van_Buyten, 17 year old box to box midfielder S_Gerrard and the 18 year old strikeforce of the Juventus youth academy in German M_Klose & Dutch R_Beerens but with them being 1 to 2 years away from being eligible, that's a subject for another time.
Juventus manager Andy Banks gave us his thoughts on the youth academy, the players we've mentioned and the retirement of Bussmann & Benzema:
"While our youth academy isn't the best one out there, it can still serve a purpose for us. When Bussy & Benzie retire in November we'll be 2 players short of the league minimum of 24 players. While other teams seem to dip below 24 on a weekly basis, us here at Juventus always stick to the written rules and so we need 2 players.
Of the 3 players we'll have available from the academy we may take all 3, we may take 1, we may take none and we may take 2. We'll make this decision when the time comes but for now the option is there that we don't have to worry about sourcing players in a transfer market that is growing harder and harder to source these types of players.
As for the rest of the academy, we have some players in there that could have the potential to be more than squad numbers for us, it's unlikely that we'll ever develop them to a level that will make them good enough for the first team but if they can be moved onto a lower level club and earn the club back some of the invested money then it'll all be worth it but it's so far away it's not even worth thinking about for now."
1971/4000 words