CA Osasuna cantera


The cantera of Spanish professional football club CA Osasuna is the organisation's youth academy, developing players from childhood through to the integration of the best prospects into the adult teams.
The final category within the youth structure is the Juvenil A under-18/19 team which represents the club in national competition. The successful graduates then usually move to the club's affiliated team for younger players, CD Iruña, or to the reserve team, Osasuna B which are also considered part of the cantera due to being stages in progression towards the senior team, albeit competing in the adult league system.
The academy is based at the club training complex, Tajonar, which is often the name used informally to refer to the system itself.

Background

The top football clubs in the Spanish leagues generally place great importance in developing their cantera to promote the players from within or sell to other clubs as a source of revenue, and Osasuna is no exception. Their youth recruitment network is focused primarily around their home region of Navarre and there are collaboration agreements in place with the small clubs in the region.
Navarre has a population of just 640,000, a small catchment zone for an elite football club, and additionally Osasuna faces a battle for some of the region's talented young players due to the presence of Athletic Bilbao, whose Basque-only player recruitment policy includes Navarre in its definition. In the 1990s and 2000s, several prominent players made the journey directly from Pamplona to Bilbao, including Ziganda, Larrainzar, Lacruz, Tiko, Orbaiz, Javi Martínez, David López and Muñoz, while others such as Goikoetxea, José Mari and Ezquerro moved from Osasuna to Athletic via other clubs. The Biscay organisation have an affiliate team in Pamplona, and several promising players who might otherwise have been likely to join Osasuna, the closest major club to their home towns were recruited by Athletic instead. This situation of increasingly aggressive recruitment fostered a tense relationship between the two clubs, arguably more so than any on-field battles.
After a spell in the late 2000s during which Osasuna had few new academy graduates joining their main squad while Athletic reached a European final with a team full of Navarros, the trend reversed - Osasuna's relegation from La Liga in 2014 provided an opportunity for several academy players to integrate into the side in the less intense atmosphere of the second tier, and they played a role in the club's return to the top level in 2016. Meanwhile, Athletic recruited hardly any youth players from Navarre in the same period.
According to a 2016 report, Osasuna had a total of 11 homegrown players still at their formative club, with another 5 at other top clubs across Europe. As a club from a small city with limited resources, the youth department's ability to train such coveted players is a vital source of income. The departures of four of the former youth players – Raúl García, Monreal, Javi Martínez and Azpilicueta –, who all became Spanish internationals, earned Osasuna €31 million in transfer fees; the fifth and last of those departures, under-21 midfielder Mikel Merino, brought in a further €4 million. In summer 2017, Álex Berenguer became the latest canterano to move abroad for a considerable fee, an important financial boost in the wake of another relegation. Athletic Bilbao had been interested in Berenguer, but no deal was agreed due in part to the rivalry between the clubs. At the same time, Athletic secured the signature of 18-year-old Jesús Areso from Osasuna's youth team, paying his modest contractual release clause amount, making it impossible for Osasuna to reject the approach; this led to the Pamplona club temporarily breaking relations with their Bilbao neighbours in annoyance due to the impolite manner in which their board felt the business was conducted.
Another analysis in 2016 concluded that the Navarre region was the most successful in Spain for producing top-level footballers per head of population thanks to the efforts of both Osasuna and Athletic Bilbao in recruiting and developing local talent.

National Competitions

The Juvenil A team play in Group II of the División de Honor Juvenil as their regular annual competition. Their main rivals in the league group are Athletic Bilbao and Real Sociedad. The under-17 team, Juvenil B, plays in the Liga Nacional Juvenil which is the lower division of the same structure.
The team also occasionally participates in the Copa de Campeones and the Copa del Rey Juvenil, qualification for which is dependent on final league group position. In these nationwide competitions the opposition includes the academy teams of Barcelona, Atlético Madrid, Sevilla and Real Madrid.

International Tournaments

It is possible for Osasuna Juvenil to participate in the UEFA Youth League, either by winning the previous season's Copa de Campeones or by way of the senior team qualifying for the UEFA Champions League group stages, but so far neither has been achieved.

Structure

The core of boys from the Navarre region are first introduced into the Tajonar Futbol 8 teams at around 10 years of age and advance by an age group every season through Infantil, Cadete and Juvenil levels. In the past, players retained after their Juvenil A spell would typically move to reserve team CA Osasuna B to gain experience in an adult league. However, Promesas is an under-23 team and it can be difficult for the younger players to make an impact. Some other leading clubs in Spain have a further reserve team or an affiliated club in the lower Tercera División level to bridge this gap, and in 2016 Osasuna made an agreement with local CD Iruña to fulfil the role. Therefore, in the coming years some of the youth academy graduates will spend 1 or 2 seasons at Iruña before the best players progress to Osasuna Promesas, and thereafter on to the senior team when considered ready to do so.

Head coaches

The coaches are often former Osasuna players who themselves graduated from Tajonar.
SquadAgeCoachTierLeague
Juvenil A16-18David García1División de Honor
Juvenil B16-17Iñaki Muñoz2Liga Nacional
Cadete A15-16Jonathan Unanua1Liga Cadete Navarra
Cadete B14-15Pablo Orbaiz2Primera Cadete

Current squads

Juvenil A

Juvenil B

Season to season (Juvenil A)

''Superliga / Liga de Honor sub-19">División de Honor Juvenil de Fútbol#Champions">Superliga / Liga de Honor sub-19''

Seasons with two or more trophies shown in bold
: :Season: :LevelGroupPositionCopa del Rey JuvenilNotes
1986–8716thQuarter-final
1987–8817thRound of 16
1988–8912ndSemi-final
1989–9017thQuarter-final
1990–91112thSemi-final
1991–9216thRound of 16
1992–9315thSemi-final
1993–94116thN/ARelegated
1994–95221stN/ANo promotion due to restructuring

''División de Honor Juvenil">División de Honor Juvenil de Fútbol">División de Honor Juvenil''

Seasons with two or more trophies shown in bold
*Season*LevelGroupPositionCopa del Rey Juv.Copa de CampeonesEurope/notes
1995–96123rdRound of 16N/A---
1996–97123rdQuarter-finalN/A---
1997–98126thN/AN/A---
1998–99125thN/AN/A---
1999–00124thN/AN/A---
2000–01121stSemi-finalWinners---
2001–02124thN/AN/A---
2002–03122ndQuarter-finalN/A---
2003–04123rdRunners-upN/A---
2004–05121stRound of 162nd in group of 3---
2005–06124thN/AN/A---
2006–07126thN/AN/A---
2007–08122ndRound of 16N/A---
2008–09125thN/AN/A---
2009–10123rdN/AN/A---
2010–11123rdRound of 16N/A---
2011–12124thN/AN/AN/A
2012–13122ndQuarter-finalN/AN/A
2013–141II5thN/AN/AN/A
2014–151II3rdN/AN/AN/A
2015–161II4thN/AN/AN/A
2016–171II1stRound of 16Quarter-finalN/A
2017–181II10thN/AN/AN/A
2018–191II9thN/AN/AN/A
2019–201II3rdN/AN/AN/A

Famous players

Notable graduates who passed through the youth system on their way to establishing themselves with the Osasuna senior side and/or other clubs include:
players currently at Osasuna in bold, 'graduation' year in parentheses

National competitions