Inside Celta Vigo: Club thriving in LaLiga and Europa League thanks to academy symbolised by Iago Aspas and Fer Lopez
Celta Vigo are having a special season at home and abroad, boosted by their famous academy. Adam Bate visits Spain to speak to the club's sporting director Marco Garces about the principles underpinning their success in LaLiga and in Europe...
Friday 27 February 2026 09:08, UK
Celta Vigo are overachieving. Sixth in LaLiga, they have navigated their way through the domestic season while also progressing to the last 16 of the Europa League, playing an impressive brand of football under coach Claudio Giraldez. None of it is by accident.
It is a result of the Galician club knowing who they are, what they want to be and how they can get there. Celta have an identity and with it an edge. "You have to understand what you are able to be the best at," says the club's sporting director Marco Garces.
"Could we bring the best players out from the market? Well, that is going to be difficult because there are other clubs who have more money than us. Are we able to have a very large network of players through the use of data? Well, not at the moment.
"We believe that we can be the best at developing players. The academy is the core of what we do. It's very important to us because we are able to bring out the best players in Spain. It's our core competence, something we can do differently to most other clubs."
Garces is speaking to Sky Sports alongside a small group of international journalists at the club's hotel in Barcelona ahead of an away game in the city. A Mexican, and now adoptive Galician, he makes a compelling case for the club's commitment to youth.
In the 2020/21 season, Celta gave 49 per cent of their available first-team minutes to academy graduates, the highest percentage of any team in a major European league. Since then, they have been keen to maintain this principle by bringing through talent.
This is why the Europa League has been a help rather than a hindrance to Celta. "It is so important for us to have access to this type of competition. Development means giving players minutes. If you cannot do that, it will be difficult to develop," explains Garces.
There is Hugo Alvarez and Hugo Sotelo, Javi Rodriguez and Yoel Lago. Sergio Carreira, Manu Fernandez and Carlos Dominguez are in their mid-twenties but also academy graduates. Meanwhile, Angelito Arcos, 19, made his debut in Europe against Ludogorets.
"It was an opportunity. You cannot explain it to him, he needs to live it to understand it. You learn to swim by swimming. You learn to ride a bike by riding a bike. If you do not play, you do not develop. The best thing you can do is give your players time to play.
"I always ask this question. Do you know when you will have your first chance? They always say no. Me neither. But what I know is that you are going to find out half an hour before it happens. Somebody is sick. And then it all starts. And it is a hurricane."
Importantly, for many, the chance will come. As well as Arcos, there is 19-year-old Hugo Burcio who made his LaLiga debut recently and Oscar Marcos who scored in the Copa del Rey. "They are the most obvious. But there are a big group of players moving up."
Iago Aspas' ongoing presence helps to fuel the dream. Sold to Liverpool in 2013, he returned over a decade ago and is still going aged 38. "When big stars come from your own academy, they become legends and they become role models to other kids."
Fer Lopez was seen as his natural heir so there was consternation when he was sold to Wolves so soon after breaking through, but he too has come back to Celta on loan. The willowy midfielder marked his return with an outrageous goal against Red Star Belgrade.
Maybe he is an example of the dangers of leaving Celta too soon? "I think that if results were a little bit better for Wolves, if he had received more minutes, I think he would have shown what he is showing here because his quality is really outstanding," says Garces.
Despite being sold at such a young age, Celta's sporting director regards him as a symbol of their academy principles in another way. He was not some superstar in the youth system but a talent they not only had to hone but be very patient with as well.
"Fer is a very interesting player. He was not growing. Now, he is very big. But he had to go out on loan. Then, his development in the later states went very fast. He grew into his body, getting stronger. And then he could play the kind of football that he now shows.
"For us, he is a role model because you never know with players. Maybe you are 15 and not playing that much. But you have to keep trying because there are these stories. It was the same with Javi Rodriguez. They were not the most likely to succeed at the start."
At other academies, perhaps they would never have succeeded. Less can be more. "It is easier to have that flow of players that we constantly produce through scarcity. We have a low number in each category. That creates the necessity to have this upward mobility."
Lopez has returned to slot seamlessly into Celta's 3-4-3 formation, one that he is well familiar with because every player at the club is familiar with it - at all levels. "If you want to be aligned, every team needs to play in the same style," Garces explains.
"We have a 3-4-3. It can change to a 4-3-3 through sliding the defender to right-back or left-back. We all do that the same. We build up from the back. We attack with two wingers which are inverted and we get the width through our wing-backs."
Garces points out that the detail is not the key element. "It is not so much the style as choosing a style. You have to choose a style." Giraldez, a progressive 38-year-old coach who stepped up from the B team to the main job, is the perfect man to implement it.
He is being tipped to have a long and successful career. But if and when Giraldez eventually leaves, Celta do not plan to change. "Now, the style is the basic principle. We should maintain our playing style and look for coaches who can play in the style that we want."
Sustainability is the goal. Since a couple of dalliances with the drop at the back end of the previous decade, Celta have established themselves in mid-table. Now in their 14th consecutive campaign in the top flight, the possibility of aiming for more feels plausible.
"What we want really is to be able to compete against these massive clubs, to win something," concludes Garces. "We want to be ambitious." Not through spending money in the transfer market but by building this football club. And none of it is happening by accident.
