Just four academy graduates in Real Madrid's first team Real Madrid La Fabrica is losing importance

In recent years, Real Madrid and their academy have been drifting further apart.

The path to the first team isn't an easy one and a host of young talent has been forced to leave Los Blancos in search of regular game time.

Only four academy graduates remain in the current squad, and that could be three if Mariano Diaz ends up leaving this summer.

Alongside Mariano, there is Dani Carvajal, Nacho and Lucas Vazquez and that's it.

Marcos Llorente and Raul de Tomas departed this summer, while Sergio Reguilon chose to leave on loan to Sevilla.

Kiko Casilla is another of La Fabrica's products to leave the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu in the last year, moving to England with Leeds.

Meanwhile, several Castilla players have also made their exits to gain some experience of senior football.

Cristo Gonzalez and Jaime Seoane have joined Huesca, Jorge de Frutos and Javi Sanchez have moved to Real Valladolid and Luca Zidane has left for Racing Santander.

Since the turn of the century, only in the 2001/02 (Iker Casillas, Francisco Pavon, Raul and Guti) and 2010/11 (Casillas, Adan, Alvaro Arbeloa and Esteban Granero) seasons have there been so few academy graduates in the first-team squad.

It's far from the 10 youngsters that formed part of the first team for the 2003/04 campaign with Casillas, Raul Bravo, Pavon, Raul, Guti, Borja Fernandez, Javier Portillo, Antonio Nunez, Ruben and Oscar Minambres.

The number of La Fabrica graduates in the first team has halved since Zinedine Zidane was in charge for the 2017/18 season, as Llorente, Casilla, Borja Mayoral, Achraf Hakimi and Ruben Yanez have all left.