Real Madrid Transfers: 5 players who can replace Luka Jovic in the squad

4. RM Castilla CF Juanmi Latasa

I am a big proponent of promoting promising Academy players to the first team and giving them the taste of top-flight football. And that desire increases when a club’s Academy is full of exciting prospects like La Fabrica is. Very recently, players like Victor Chust, Miguel Gutierrez, Sergio Arribas, etc. have shown us how some of these players are capable of creating impacts within limited opportunities. And, in the discussion for an ideal backup striker, Real Madrid Castilla’s Juanmi Latasa could be an exciting prospect to look at.

Firstly, bringing Latasa to the first team would be economically profitable to the club. And secondly, Latasa does have the ability to create that impact and become a regular bench player for Real Madrid. Latasa is a promising prospect for the future, to say the least, and his stats make a good case for him. He is the side’s second-highest scorer in the league with six goals, second to only Sergio Arribas who has eight. Moreover, he is clearly the coach’s preferred player within the lot of three talented strikers in the squad.

Latasa was called up to the first team in the match against Granada where both Vinicius Junior and Karim Benzema weren’t available. While Vini was out serving a suspension, Benzema was out injured. The young man didn’t get his opportunity in that game. But, Carlo Ancelotti calling him up suggests that he’s the striker closest to the first-team spot among all other strikers in Real Madrid’s youth system.

He’d nonetheless be an exciting experiment and since it virtually costs nothing to Real Madrid, I am of the view that he should be tried against weaker defenses in the first team to get a better idea of where Real Madrid should hunt for its next backup striker, within their own youth system or in the transfer market.