Real Madrid and Carlo Ancelotti already have defensive selection headaches for the 23/24 season

Éder Militão’s injury has put a huge question mark over Real Madrid’s defence. Right now, Ancelotti has just three centre-backs available in his squad: Alaba, Rüdiger and Nacho make up a defensive line with huge holes in it. This is where the youth team comes in.

La Fábrica has plenty of candidates who could well fill up the gaps in the defence that have been plagued by injuries. Carlo Ancelotti, in both of his stints in Madrid, has hardly ever called up three centre-backs from the youth team but he has never given any of them an official debut in the first team.

Now, however, the dire situation of Militão’s ACL tear means that the manager has no other choice.

In his first spell as Madrid manager, Ancelotti called up Diego Llorente. The Madrid-born centre-back, although given his debut by Mourinho, played two games for the Italian, one league game and one cup tie. The current Roma player remains the only centre-back to come from the youth team to play under Carletto.

On his return to the Madrid bench, Ancelotti called up Rafa Marín a number of times. The Sevilla-born player, now playing at Alavés, was in the first team squad on 6 occasions, and was even included in Madrid’s UCL squad to face Chelsea in the 2021/22 season, although he didn’t feature.

Which players has Ancelotti given debuts to?

A similar case is that of Marvel. The current Real Madrid Castilla centre-back has trained many times with the first team and has even made the squad (in the Copa del Rey), but he has never played with the first team in an official game.

Ancelotti is a manager who has given little time to players from the youth setup at Real Madrid. The Italian, during all of his time at the club, has given debuts to 6 players from Castilla and none of them currently play for the club: Willian José, Álvaro Medrán, Raúl de Tomás, Javi Muñoz, Martin Ødegaard, Juanmi Latasa and Álvaro Rodríguez.