Castilla rated top academy in top five leagues by CIES

The CIES football observatory (via AS) came out with a recent report on the top footballing academies across world football. They based their data on how many academy products are now playing in a top five league. CIES considers the top five leagues: La Liga, Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1.

According to the report, only three academies are ranked higher than Castilla: Ajax, Benfica Red Bull Salzburg. Castilla rank fourth with 17 academy products now playing top flight football.

The only La Liga that comes close is Barcelona’s La Masia, who are placed 11th in the rankings. There are no top five league clubs in the top 10 besides La Fábrica. It’s quite remarkable how successful Castilla has been considering so many other top football club’s academies aren’t producing anywhere near the same level of talent.

Roberto Carlos says he prevented a young Marcelo from going on loan

Robert Carlos was interviewed recently by ESPN (via AS) where he revealed he put a stop to a Marcelo loan after he had just arrived from Fluminense at just 18 years old.

“I met Marcelo here [Real Madrid] when he was 18 years old. Madrid wanted to transfer him to some clubs here in Spain and I was the first to say no, absolutely not.”

Roberto Carlos was still starting at left back when Marcelo transferred to Madrid in 2006. It’s intriguing to think about how Marcelo’s career would’ve been different had he served a loan spell before getting his chance to take over the starting role for the next decade as he did.

At least it seems part of the thanks for Marcelo getting his chance to cement his legacy at Real Madrid can be attributed to Roberto Carlos seeing that special talent in his fellow countryman.

Jovic set to appear before a public prosecutor in Serbia over quarantine violation

This has been an ongoing saga for Luka Jovic after this dates back to him violating coronavirus quarantine rules in March. Now according to a report from MARCA, the 22-year-old is set to appear in front of a public prosecutor.

We talked about how Jovic could see punishment for his actions several weeks ago in a previous edition of notes & quotes. Well it seems we now have continued development into this story.

According to the report, the punishment in Serbia can range between a fine of about €1,300 to up to three years in prison. For some precedent, the report also notes how a fellow Serbian footballer Aleksander Prijovic received a three month house arrest sentence last week after breaking curfew.

Just based on that decision, I would assume Jovic won’t receive a prison sentence for his own alleged breaking of self-isolation. He is more likely to receive a fine or house arrest order I would think if he is actually charged.

It’s hard to say exactly what will come of this. It’s been almost a month now that Jovic first allegedly broke these rules. But, it does seem now that it is getting much more serious. We’ll have to just keep following this ongoing story to see what the final decision is.