More Villarreal B reinforcements

I posted a fanpost earlier that reported Cristian Cedrés had joined us from Real Madrid Castilla. To that can be added a couple of new names that have signed or are about to:

Roger Riera is a central defender who was a youth player at Barcelona, before moving to England, signed by Nottingham Forest at the age of 19. He never played for their first team and after a year and a half they allowed him to go to Celta, where he spent the last year and a half. Now he’s joined Villarreal.

Our sister blog Barca Blaugranes had a translated interview with him in May.

An interesting move inasmuch as Villarreal has had success with developing some center backs at the first team level, while others (Florian Lejeune and Alexsandar Pantic as examples) found it difficult to gain first team time. Things could be a little different now, hopefully.

And then we have Enric Franquesa, another ex-La Masia player. He’s 20 years old, a left-sided player (primarily defense, but can play on the wing). Enric spent last year on loan at Sabadell and then Gavà, so we will have seen him firsthand in the Segunda B.

For those of you that follow American football, you know that most of the attention is focused on the annual draft of college players, but then teams are free to sign any undrafted players as free agents—and some, such as the New England Patriots, have uncovered real gems that way. That is sort of how to view signings for the B and C teams—the sheer numbers dictate that many won’t get the chance to play for our first team, or will be released to other clubs in the lower divisions once their contract is up. But then, there is someone like Manu Trigueros. We signed him (for our C team!!) on a free transfer from Real Murcia’s second team—he was 18. I’d have to say that’s worked out rather well for us! Maybe one of these signings will as well.

Endavant Villarreal, and endavant la cantera!!