Inside Benfica's incredible talent factory
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- čas přidán 8. 03. 2023
- Benfica reached the Champions League quarter-finals this week and have built an incredible model of buying low and selling high in recent years, featuring eye-watering fees received for the likes of Joao Felix and Enzo Fernandez. So how do they keep doing it? Stuart James went to visit the academy recently and joins Jack Lang, The Athletic's Portugal expert, and Mark Chapman on The Athletic Football Podcast this week...
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#benfica #championsleague #theathletic - Sport
Lovely content. Thank you guys for shining a light over the great work being done at Benfica's academy. I am Portuguese, and more than the talk about the emphasis on ball control and tactics, I felt especially proud when Stuart mentioned that all Benfica youth players that talked to him, independently of their age, shook his hand and were polite. More than forming good players, clearly the academy is also trying to form good, empathic and well-balanced adults. Well done!
We play from the hearts we play with passion, it's not just about money something will be hard for some to understand. Most big teams it's like kids playing championship manager with cheats is no passion and a tone of supporters just get excited for the next big signing will be .
Sois msm pequeninos....por estar em quartos olha o espetáculo que fazeis!!!eles so não falaram da hospitalidade que vocês têm com nos para irmos aí abaixo festejar os campeonatos em vossa casa...nisso vocês são os maiores!!
@@Nightmare-hf1rr Ó pesadelo, tu vens a um vídeo que não tem nada a ver com o teu clube, e respondes a um comentário que não fala no teu clube nem dos seus adeptos. E depois eu é que sou pequenino?! Que ironia deliciosa!
@@LynxLuso A verdade é que a vossa alegria de chegar a quartos não passa despercebida...e não posso deixar passar a oportunidade de recalcar alguns episódios da vossa história recente!!E tranquilo que podeis assistir á final no sofá!!
Check what Taarabt a former player said about Benfica, and the culture of the club ...
Benfica belongs to the Benfiquistas, not to a millionaire person. Eternal life to Benfica!
Truth be said about Antonio Silva, the 19 year old centre back you mention. The reason he was called to play was because Benfica had 3 exceptional centre backs out with injuries and although Antonio was training with the 1st team noone expected him to play so soon he was 5th in line. But he's so good that although the others have fully recovered he keeps his spot in the starting line-up. It's one of those things that happens in life that noone could ever predict.
Cheers from Portugal as benfica fan
More than future stars, the Academy is proud of growing future men. That’s their secret.
thank you for bringing up this subject about an academy I know, and I'm a fan, to conclude, the work done this year by coach roger schmidt is remarkable, he went to look for several players who were loaned to other clubs and managed to bring them and put them to play high quality football.
Força Benfica!!!!♥️
The Bosman ruling killed the likes of Benfica and Ajax. They would always be chronic UCL champions
I agree with you entirely. Up until 92/93 I saw Benfica as a champions league favourite (just below inter or Milan). On the other hand this forced português football to reinvent themselves (with a focus on football academies). This coincided with the rise of our national team (which I love) and I think30 years later Benfica found the formula to be competitive again.
@@josesilva4171with Rui Costa as the boss who puts the club first, i truly believe they can beat the Guttmann curse (probably with the Euro League first).
Nothing to do with the "Bosman Law". It's all about Country Economy. Portuguese Clubs need to sell players almost every year to balance finances. And beside that these young talents after proving their worth in Portuguese Clubs/National Teams start getting offers from bigger clubs, from bigger championships, that can pay 3, 5, 10 times what Portuguese Clubs can. It's just normal that they wanna leave to clubs like that pay more and are able to fight for bigger trophies like the Champions League 'cause they gather the biggest players in the World. Benfica can't say No to 120M for Félix, 130M for Enzo, 100M for Darwin, 75M for Rúben Dias, etc. Nor can the club block the players dreams of getting to bigger clubs/Championships. The same with Netherland's Clubs like Ajax.
@@brixcosmo6849 All to do with the Bosman rule. I guess you are young and do not know what changed with the Bosman rule. Before the rule change even if a player ended the contract he couldn’t play for another team unless a fee was agreed. Now a player finishes a contract and can sign for another team. This means that you do not have to pay transfer fees, just big salaries. For example Grimaldo will leave Benfica without Benfica receiving the fee for the player.
The power shifted from club to the player. With that players make a lot more money and teams with a lot of money have all the competitive advantage
Jack and Stuart, Benfica has something more than centres all over Portugal: as a matter of Benfica, other centres supported or develloped by Benfica, are beeing develloped all over the world in South America, Africa and Asia, in partnership with local autorities. It`s a huge effort with two flags: support the sports of youth and get a larger basis of recruitment.
We are Sport Lisboa e Benfica, this countries biggest passion, my great grandfather was a founder, the Academia do Seixal is our pride it is our future and present .....thank you for a fantastic video
Benfica is the best academy in the world no doubt
Hahaha
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
@@MiguelBaptista1981 🍈🍈🐀
@@rajb2057 + Sporting CP
Lyon ?
Carrega Benfica 🔴⚪🔥
The philosophy of Benfica has been turned over 3 or 4 right decisions for the past year.
1) Send off the old president who taught he was managing a grosseries store based on pure business, conventions and believes of his own head.
2) Sign a coach that constantly articulates with the youth academy. Unlike what people think, each player in the academy is not cheap. It's time to actually use them.
3) The signing policy of players points now to young talented who can grow with the team and eventually get transfered by a big amount.
4) The mentality of the new coach is fearless attacking regardless of the oponnent. With such a fabulous array of resources supporting him such as the numerous crowd, training conditions and money, it's the perfect combination for achieving great results.
Yes, tiny country, tiny population and tiny economy but ambitious and football mad! The odds may be against you but that doesn't matter for a Portuguese. I live abroad but never lost this connection to my country. Lived in The UK for more than 20 years but my passion was always the Portuguese league. I am now on the other side of the planet but always checking the scores of Benfica, Porto Sporting ... being that at 1am or 4am. I am a benfica fan but love all Portuguese teams (was not always like that and for most portuguese football fans their first club is anti-benfica, anti-sporting or anti-Porto, the rivalry is mad).
Same as a grandson of sporting fans. It’s always nice to see them prosper especially in Europe
Portuguese and Benfica fan here, can confirm, I have a special hatred for sporting and Porto 🤣
Much love and respect to you ! Abraço!
@@MiguelBrito1139 X2 BENFICA ATE MORRER
Se Gostas de Futebol, ama o Benfica!❤
Great content...keep up the good work.
I think with Benfica they will become such experts on talent that they will be able to become on experts on pricing. They will be able to bridge the gaps by selling a player for more than their worth to rip off the top 5 leagues and have an even better made replacement than the guy they sold. Clubs like benfica threaten the top 5 leagues!
True. But it’s hard, because if they miss a step, they can ruin an entire season. You have Porto who also work within those politics, but somewhere in the middle they made some bad decisions that took that edge from them at an European level. The Porto that I know, would never get more than 4 goals at home against Liverpool in 3 times straight. And they are the last Portuguese team that won the champions league and the Europa league, they had everything in their hands to keep the momentum, yet they eventually failed somehow, and now they are trying to catch the train again. All this to say that benfica has a long way to go. They have to be consistent throughout the years. This is the way I see it as a Benfica fan.
@@joelferreira9577 Estás a falar bem e mesmo como benfiquista, sinto que não há muito essa consciência portuguesa de que o Porto ainda é o clube que melhor se estruturou no futebol europeu, há várias décadas já. Claro que a página está a virar, com Rui Costa e Roger Schmidt temos um modelo mais empenhado, pressionante e honestamente, exótico na liga portuguesa, o que consolidou ainda mais a posição de líder do Benfica. E isto só vai melhorar, com o passar dos anos do treinador e desta filosofia tática. Vamos com humildade e jogo a jogo, porque assim não há troféu nenhum fora de hipóteses, nenhum.
@@joelferreira9577 Going to enter on this discussion as a foreigner that lived in Portugal for some years and forgive me if i am wrong but as an outsider , looking back , Porto has considerable less supporters than benfica and overall less stable/static resources, and while they were better structured for multiple years, they were also more dependent on results, and no matter how good you are, there is always the chance of things going wrong once or even twice (happens to all in football), and once those extra revenues from going further in europe were taken away, Porto got on colision with eufa's financial rules, and since 2019 or so ,they have been struggling, with the struggle being first visible in european competitions but now also domestically, even more this year when benfica has been not only getting better results but visibly outplaying Porto by a huge margin, what puts extra pressure on porto and gives little leeway for them error. The reality is that Benfica is a club that in terms of dimensions transcends Portugal itself and the portuguese economy. as far as i know, this year just on european progression alone benfica made 70+ millions , add to that 80 or something from enzo, and a few other sales,and we are looking at around 200 millions in revenue, without even accounting for publicity, sponsors and domestic revenue. That is the kind of monetary mass that porto can not generate even in a good year.
What threats the top 5 leagues isn’t benfica’s problem but each team that purchases from Benfica not understanding timing of the player not being a finished “product” and needing more maturing/play time. Some players left too early Renato and Felix are great examples.
I'd say we already became experts on pricing in the last years. With the help of better scouting, the changes in Football Market (much more money circulating than like 5-10 years ago) and 'cause once you do sales like Benfica did in the last years you get some leverage when it comes to selling your better players and also you can invest in new talents wisely. This will always happen due to the Countries Economy. Portuguese Clubs need to sell players to balance Finances. Tickets, Advertising, Sponsors, Merch, etc is not enough to maintain good balanced teams. If we didn't sell we couldn't buy either. We're not State Clubs like ManCity, PSG, etc. Nor do we have the Economic Dimension of Clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, ManUtd, etc. Beside that these players have their own ambitions and the club naturally has to respect that. 120M for Félix to At.Madrid, 130M for Enzo to Chelsea, 100M for Darwin to Liverpool, 75M for Rúben Dias to ManCity, etc. Portuguese Clubs will never pay these amounts for a player. At the max we'll pay 20-25M in exceptional cases like we did with Enzo and Darwin. And these Big Clubs are capable of paying 3, 5, 10 times what the Biggest Clubs in Portugal (Benfica, Porto, Sporting) can. That will never change 'cause of Portuguese (Football's) Economy. Due to these last sales now he have a great team doing an awesome campaign in the Championship and in UCL. At least 2 players in Benfica's actual team can be sold for values between 50M and 100M in the end of the Season. Gonçalo Ramos (Striker, 21 yo) and António Silva (Center Back, 19 yo). Florentino (Defensive Midfielder, 23 yo) is one of the best DM in the World in my opinion.. He's worth something like 30-40M. Aursnes (The Norwegian Gerrard), David Neres (The Sleepy Sniper) and Rafa (The Flash) easily the same. And there's a lot of great talents already getting minutes in the Team. So we're prepared if some of them want to leave at the end of the season.
I love to hear a neutral's opinion about portuguese football.it took years for Benfica to get its academy to where its at.When you are "poor" you have to deal with what you have .The portuguese are football mad nation.tiny country not so rich Country Portuguese clubs have to compete against financial giants who just cant bother.they can buy who they desire.
Delusional to think a club that can pay up to 7.5M salary per year to a player can be call "poor". Benfica is one of the top-50 richest clubs in the world.
Boavista used to be one of the best academies back in the day
Nuno Gomes, João Pinto
O que mudou?
@@shivs_nb Corrupção!
Creating talents since 1904! @slbenfica ❤️🦅
And now we have a little enormous monster of a midfielder, João Neves, who just turned 19 but was essential for the 2nd half of the season and making Benfica, league champions again. And if all goes ok, the next player we will be talking about, beside João Neves, is João Veloso. Another midfielder, more like a mezzala, but my word, so much talent there that it's barely believable.
I have been a Benfica fan since I was a kid and I am 40 years old. I saw Benfica go through some troubled times in the mid 90's with the frauds of a mafia president. The Bosman ruling turned Benfica from a big club into a small club that had to take everything back from zero. I am glad that after twenty years now they are back to their old glory. What would be great is if we could break through the glass ceiling of the quarter finals and reach the semi-finals. The season in the champion's league is already successful but I feel that it is possible to do even better than the quarter finals. This year the champions league is very open, if we take chelsea, milan, inter or porto or even Napoli we have chances to go to the semi-final.
Força Benfica.... rumo a Istanbul
BENFICA, The LOVE of Million!
Love it when the athletic does content like this
Benfica academy in Seixal is the best in the world. A mean machine.
Already sold since the beginning of the century 2 teams that could win the Champions league.
Sold 1 billion in players.
Funny that Jack gives as an example that ir would be rare to find a player from an academy outside the big 3, like from Boavista. Bruno Fernandes came through the Boavista youth ranks
ps: as someone suggested, I'm not trying to disprove a point. Just pointing out a fact I find interesting since Bruno is one of the best portuguese players and he did not came from one of the big 3's academy.
Yeah and Diogo Jota from Paços de Ferreira
And Braga have a couple young players coming up. Trincao was 1 also
He said rare, which means it doesn't occur often, you basically just back up his point by only highlighting one player, same with the comments below.
@@jqm79 I was not trying to disprove his point. The internet is not a debating club.
@@miguelmateus5258 I'm not suggesting you were trying to disprove his point. You said it was funny, as if it didn't make sense. It is rare to find.
The difference is that you have to love your club. The kids have to want to play for the club even under15s. He said it a few weeks ago in the interview after selling Enzo. Check it out
Not only we have the clubs afiliates and partnerships through the country , we also have a "district team" for every district football assotiation that plays on a district national cup each summer.
Meaning that each district assotiation pick up the best 24 players from within the district teams, some players come from virtually unknown teams ,to represent the assotiation on a little competition to find out the "best regional football assotiation" on youth players and that is really good way to avoid letting some obscure tallent to run away or be lost.
Benfica to be the best academy and talent scouting in the world
Very good video guys, unique content! Keep it up!
Great content!!!
Good job guys!
Benfica players that leave the system to play in different clubs always seem to have a huge respect for the club 🔴⚪️🦅🔴⚪️🦅
And I think most of them will come back and we will be a real force. The old President had dream of winning the champions league only with the academy players, in 5/6 years from now i think will be possible ❤
@@carloscampos5251 hey Carlos! That would be amazing. I hope we can continue to score goals and step closer to the Champions league title! I know it’s hard but we have the goal scores to pad the score. If our mid, D and goalie stay strong we can go far or even win
Sorting my passport next month and I’m sure I’ll be on my way to Istambul 👹👹👹👹👹👹
Thanks Jack to mencionated my love Boavista! 🏁🇵🇹
BENFICA CARALHOOO
Tens de parar de embaraçar os fans e entusiastas do Benfica man 😂
If you think Benfica became the best acadamy in the world with a former president who was treating young players like grocery and not the best coaches to develop them.
Just wait to see what the Seixal can do with Rui Costa and Roger Schmidt!
I just hope we can keep Roger for 4 or 5 years. 🙏🙏🙏❤❤❤
Roger often seeks a new challenge after 2-3 years.
Amazing content
Ramos will be the next player to leave benfica this summer💯👍
Not necessarily, Benfica academy players don't push for an exit in the same way, so it depends on the Benfica finances right now on if he needs to be sold, and then it can be an evaluation on the opportunities available. That's why you've had various players saying they'd love to come back one day (Like Bernardo the most high profile wish), and now Guedes returned and has been revitalizing to him.
@@bentn13 do you really think if a top team offers the 120 million and a fat salary he will stay ???
@@sergiopita5117 I'm saying it's not as sure he'll leave as it was in the days of our former president who wanted to sell the house. I can imagine him staying, but it's also probable he'll leave. For example Silva is much more likely to stay at Benfica longer than expected, because 100m on a central defender doesn't sound reasonable. Benfica won't need to sell for less, and he's happy here. These kids have a long history of Benfica youngsters leaving and making a life for themselves to base their decisions on, and there's Renato's and Guedes' who have had more up and down careers, and Ruben's and Ederson's who've had solid stable careers. They have more access to understanding what the money will and won't bring them. And Benfica being more competitive means that the Champions League deep runs are achievable staying as well. Basically what I'm saying is that in the last couple years the equation of staying or leaving has changed.
Ramos, Antonio Silva, Florentino are very different from Darwin or Enzo...they are proud to be Benfica players, its football heritage its in their blood...so for example Gonçalo Ramos in my opinion will only leave for a club like Real Madrid to become Benzema replacement or Bayern for example but PSG, City, Chelsea those clubs have money but they don't have enough football heritage and the youth Benfica academy players don't think its enough...they have a different mindset compared with players like Enzo or Darwin towards Benfica heritage and history...they are part of our culture, they are one of us!
@@Piairom so explain why did felix agreed to go to a dead Atletico Madrid ? Gonçalo Guedes to a dead Psg ? Bernado Silva to Monaco? You are just talking out of your ass . If a team like chelsea liverpool pay 120M at the end of the season for Ramos i guarantee you he will go
BENFICA!! ❤👌💪👏
🦅❤
Well, iam a Benfiquista since ever. I can say that Benfica wanted to invert the situation of best portuguese academy, Because was always Sporting having the best in that way. But we dont receive the money of television like England for ex, so we have to form to be more competetive has possible. Benfica has in their history 7 european champions league finals, we want to be huge again. We are in a process of selling the best, because they want to play in big leagues not here. Its not easy to play with the sharks, so this is the way.
They have a lot of failures too, its just the real successes pay off massively
A lot of Bielsa similarities
Benfica team B and team sub23
with Rui Costa as the boss who puts the club first, i truly believe they can beat the Guttmann curse (probably with the Euro League first).
xD have you ever heard about Ronaldo, Pepe, Figo, Bruno Fernandes, Nani, Rui Patrício, Rafael Leão, Cedric? All from benfica right? xD, btw João Felix changed to benfica at the age of 16 from Porto.... "talent factory" xD
IT'S VERY UNLIKELY BENFICA WIN THE CHAMPIONS BECAUSE ALMOST/EVERY YEAR THEY SELL PLAYERS LIKE PORTO, SPORTING.
THEY HAVE TO...SO I THINK NO CHANGE
Benfica Produces Overrated Talents🙌
The Greatest talent football academy in Portugal ,its the Sporting Academy,who gave more international football starts than any other football academy.
Big mistake this title.
Just look where Quaresma,Figo, Ronaldo,Nani,Futre,etc,etc came from.SCP Academy.
That was 20 and more years ago.
And ever since, Benfica's academy rised up. And in case you didnt know, the youth staff from Sporting swapped to Benfica around 15 years ago, so that helped Benfica's academy to rise to the top
@@MFPRego oh man,how wrong you are.20 years ago Ronaldo was still playing at Sporting when he went to England.
See how Ignorant you are abaut the Greatest Football academy in Portugal.
Even before Benfica dream having an academy,Sporting was making history by forming the Best players made in Portugal for years.
You are too Young to Remember that.
But the most Successfull Portuguese players from the last 40 years were made in Sporting.
Do a proper research,before saying BS.
You were not even born when Portugal was world Champion of Sub-20 in 1989 and 1991 under Carlos Queirós.
Check the Champions teams,and see how many Sporting players from the Academy were world Champions.
The only team in Europa with an academy so successfull has Sporting its the Ajax Academy.
That's football history,man.
@@jpmtlhead39 oh man... 🤦🤦
Youre ignorant and still stuck in the past.
Im 45 🤣🤣🤣 and yes, i do know what im talking about.
But since youre answer was as dumb as it was and so agressive, your opinion counts for nothing!
Talk alone
its pretty stupid to be honest. ur basically helping out every other rival club by producing talent for them to just take
Not really. Portugal (despite how much i love it) still doesn't have the economic competitveness or even the projection that other countries and leagues have. It is an unfortunate limbo on which portuguese clubs have to perform a balancing act. But don't worry, looking at portuguese football History, we still get our great finals, 3rd/4th place finishes and even European titles. Many people just dismiss the portuguese football league because were a small country by comparison.
@@tnightwolf 🦅💪❤️👊👑
Here we go again. The portuguese press hype towards Benfica is now going abroad. Players do like 6 months of quality football and are instantly the next best thing in the world, but if we really count the ones that fullfill their potential only two names come to mind: Bernardo Silva and Cancelo. Years pass and players like Renato Sanches and João Félix still fail to do anything relevant in the football world apart from one or two glimpses of brilliance.
They have great talent, but they made bad choices for their careers. Their fault.
The lack of arguments to support the phrase: "6 months of football and they are the best in the world", so it's better to just say this: Benfica doesn't spend time trying to denigrate its opponents, Benfica respects Porto and Sporting, Benfica wants stronger opponents, that's the only way it can be better... when you understand that a strong opponent makes you stronger, then you will understand what football is. And this is to take for life.
Põe gelo que passa.
@@ricardogomes7226 tou bem obrigado
Ahahahahahahaha another Benfica hater.
Must be a Sporting or F.C Porto fans
Jack Lang 0 knowledge about Benfica.
It's one of the better academies in Europe for sure, but there's a false mythology about the quality of players they sell. For every Bernardo Silva there is a Joao Felix, Nelson Semedo, Fabio Coentrao or Renato Sanches. Their talent identification for buying is probably the best in Europe though, Oblak from Olimpija and Ederson from Sao Paulo were amazing.
Ederson joined Benfica at 16. He still played in the academy. Also, Fabio, Nelson and Renato/Félix represent three different generations, where the last one had the better school, and I would definitely not call Renato a failure, just injury prone, and Félix is continually showing his talent, so I don't understand that as a failure either, teams not using players well isn't a proof that one should be careful when getting players from Benfica. Even Nélson Semedo, they didn't use him for his strengths.
Anon, so you are saying that Felix or Renato Sanches have questionable quality? It is not Benfica’s fault their choices for Atletico which play a defensive game or in case of Renato going to a established Bayern team at the time, with Lille he won the Ligue 1 being one of the best also in the Euro, the injuries of both players did not help, everyone knows their qualities, that’s why they play in big clubs right now
"false mythology" ahah
🤣🤣🤣
@@paulmarcelino8484 Atletico and Simeone are always unfairly labled a defensive team in this debate about Joao Felix. Falcao, Diego Costa and Griezmannn certainly didn't have any complaints about their scoring records in the team. And Renato Sanches is a werewolf of a player - couldn't do the basics at Swansea, tore up trees in some games at Bayern and then didn't look like he belonged even on the bench, won the league with Lille and is now disappeared at PSG. You can only have a sensible conversation about these players when there's a new shiny thing, then people are ready to discuss that maybe these 'generational talents' were a little overhyped.
It is a shame that such a big club with so much talent is link with so many wrong doings like spiying on courts, paying referees, paying other clubs and players to win the oposing team rivals, and so on and on
Stop lying! You're just a supporter of the corrupted FC Porto or the forever broke elitist Sporting. Can't compare a regional club or the club of the Elites with the Club Of The People... The Glorious SL Benfica.
Yeah, the club who pays referees, send the ultras to their houses, have ultras in the fleet who provides transporte to the referees for the games, Control the referees sistem and their promotion, menace the Press, steal infos of the rival, have Police in their playlist, menace others clubs, send the ultras to the academy filial of Benfica to intimidate kids and their fathers, have 2 others clubs in same division who act like their filial, crying everywhere with lies, forged a fake program TV of lies ( dismantled by a tribunal who recognize the big lie it was) is the One who play with a blue and white jersey, the club who aleays had violênce in every game, Every support, the club full of HATE is what it his,his name Porto!!!!
Besides bernardo silva how many benfica made players are really good and have good seasons?? Benfica players are all about marketing nothing more
This was funny. And bad.
Benfica makes few good players from their academy. Sporting Lisbon is far better. What Benfica is good at is spotting young promising players, buying them cheap, giving them exposure and selling them at top dollar.
😂😂😂
Sporting fans, always delusional...
@@realramone3455 And I'm not a Sporting fan, at all.
😅 drinking and comment don’t go well together
The 90's called and want you back
Joao Felix is a FLOP.