Valencia rejected the chance to sign Carlos Espí twice before his move to Real Madrid

AS reports that Valencia had two opportunities to sign Carlos Espí while he was playing in Alzira’s youth teams, but did not sign him. Valencia and Real Madrid meet on Saturday evening in the twelfth round of La Liga. Espí has never played at Mestalla, having missed Levante’s match against Valencia last season through injury.

Espí began his career with UE Tavernes before moving to Alzira. According to the report, Marta Pellicer, who worked in talent identification at La Safor, recommended signing him. Alzira assigned him a personal coach one day a week to develop his physical abilities. The player scored six goals for the under-16 team, 25 for the C youth team and six for the B youth team.

In 2022, Alzira and Valencia, who are linked by a cooperation agreement, held a friendly match to monitor youth players, including Espí, but Valencia made no move to sign him after his performance that day. Levante then entered the race to sign him, and negotiations initially stalled over Alzira’s condition that it retain a percentage of any future transfer fee. During that time, Rafa Asensio and the player’s father got back in touch with Valencia, and Espí had a trial at the club’s training centre, but the deal was not completed.

Espí eventually joined Levante after agreeing with Alzira that it would receive 10% of any future transfer fee, rather than the 15% it had demanded. The report says Alzira later received 2.5 million euros following the player’s move to Real Madrid.