Hello all, welcome back to the blog. Back in 2016, some of you may have read an article published by The Sun, or a similar one from Marca, talking about one of the best young players in Real Madrid’s academy, a seven-year old named Byron. While the young fella hasn’t got a lot of coverage since then, and left in 2022 at 13 to join Rayo Vallecano. Well, here he is back in a spotlight of some sort, at the age of 15, rejecting an offer to return and instead joining their arch-rivals, Barcelona.
Born in 2009, Byron was scouted at some time by Real Madrid and joined La Fabrica at a very young age. He soon became one of their standout performers in their U-8s level. The article about Byron in 2016 by The Sun spoke highly of the then seven-year old, describing him as a winger with “excellent attacking awareness”, “electric in all of his actions”, and “well-behaved.
In an ironic twist, The Sun also took a moment in their article about Byron to mention the changing focus of Real Madrid on their academy, after giving academy talents such as Dani Carvajal, Nacho, and Mariano first team chances, contrasting Barcelona’s focus at the time, with the Cules having spent massive fees on Luis Suarez, Neymar, Andre Gomes, Arda Turan, and more with massive splashes for Ousmane Dembele, Philippe Coutinho, Malcom, Antoine Griezmann, and more still to come under the blind guidance of Josep Bartomeu.
Looking at today’s world, the narrative has switched back completely, with Los Blancos having spent massive fees on players such as Jude Bellingham, Aurelien Tchouameni, Vinicius Jr, and generally improving their team through marquee signings rather than academy prospects. Comparing that to Barcelona’s modern era, seeing prospects such as Ansu Fati, Gavi, Alex Balde, Lamine Yamal, and Pau Cubarsi all come up through the academy, and now looking back on the point made by writer of said article, Andrew Richardson, the point is given extra irony knowing the switching of sides from Byron, and seeing that, since the article was written, Dani Carvajal still is the latest Madrid academy player to have been given regular first team minutes for any long period of time, and even then, they originally sold him to Leverkusen and had to buy him back for 6.5m in 2012.
Anyway, going back to Byron, we didn’t hear from him again for another six years, until he left Los Blancos at 13 years old to move to Rayo Vallecano, who had more money to invest in their youth setup after their promotion to La Liga. At least that’s what Transfermarkt says happened. They say that Mendoza left Madrid in 2022 to join Rayo, spent a year there, went to Leganes in 2023, and spent a year there before his Barca move this summer. However, I believe he left Madrid in either the summer of 2021 or January of 2022 at the age of 12, never joined Rayo, going straight to Leganes before joining Barcelona this summer. I say that because there wasn’t any coverage of Byron’s move to Rayo and no pictures of him in their colours, and there’s a picture I’ve undercovered of Mendoza winning best player in Leganes’ U13 setup, meaning he must have been there in 2022 instead of Madrid or Rayo.
All that confusion aside, Mendoza remains a winger today, having switched flanks from left to right, but still is a right winger, and has increased his skillset based on that for a long time, which is a good thing. Also, having won “MVP” of Leganes’ U13 side in 2022, he’s definitely a very good player, and befitting of the challenge in front of him to make it to Barcelona’s senior team. Until then though, I’m Jim James, until next time.