As Benfica prepare for their 32 Europa League games against Arsenal, the club has a billion-dollar question: Can they continue to generate huge revenue through player sales while are they also completing a 59 – year wait for European success?
The club’s Campus Benfica has an incredible track record for bringing out world-class talent. In November 2020, the International Center for Sport Science (CIES) gave them the highest score for establishing an academy in the top 31 leagues in Europe, taking into account the number of players trained, their age and the level of sport they reached. Ajax was in second place, Barcelona in third place.
The list of stars taken out at their 19-hectare site in Quinta da Trindade, a half-hour ride across the Tagus River from downtown Lisbon, over the years is truly daunting. Manchester City is home to four graduates: Ruben Dias, Bernardo Silva, Ederson and Joao Cancelo. Victor Lindelof is now at Manchester United, Nelson Semedo will play for Wolverhampton Wanderers, Goncalo Guedes at Valencia, Andre Gomes at Everton.
Data from the Transfermarkt website suggests that Benfica is the only club to have generated more than a billion pounds in sales since 2009, a staggering figure including the fourth highest transfer tax ever: Joao Felix’s transfer of £ 114 million to Atletico Madrid in July 2019. To make up for the year-over-year loss, Benfica attacked Brazil for three summer signings – Gilberto right-back, midfielder Pedrinho and forward Everton – a may eventually be the next players sold to big clubs, but the emphasis is still heavily on youth development.
Benfica remains a center of Portuguese football, the latest of their 37 league titles coming just two years ago, but on the international stage they have not contributed to the success of the Scottish Cup. Europe in the early 1960s. The question of ending that thirst begins this week with Benfica against Arsenal in the first leg of their last 32 Europa League tie.
It’s also inevitable an opportunity to showcase their latest batch of talent to a larger audience, with major clubs always swimming the club’s academy for the next big thing. Realizing the aspirations for sporting and financial success is not easy, but in an exclusive interview with ESPN, Benfica Campus Director General Pedro Mil-Homens explains why Dias’ story is an example of a true product. good of the academy. Dias, 23, was the last big name to leave Benfica, joining City in a £ 65m deal last summer, ending more than a decade at Arran Benfica.
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“We have a mission in our academy and that is to produce players for the highest level of competitiveness, if that is possible to be able to play for our first team,” said Mil-Homens. where we make players, we sell players. We are not in a country with an economy that will keep the best for several years because the budget numbers, the TV rights, count for a lot. The big five leagues – England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain – have tremendous power to buy young players. In our case, the big clubs come when our players reach the first team and we have to live with that. That is life.
“Ruben is a great example. If we could reproduce the path of Ruben Dias, it would be very satisfying. He joined us for 11 years. He reached the first team. He played more than 100 matches for the first team. He gave us a football return, a performance result and then he also gave us a financial return on the investment.
“Ruben is a great example of our ambition: We were all satisfied. Himself, ourselves, the academy, the manager, the club, the president. Of course, it doesn’t happen all the time. , otherwise it would be very easy to take action and certainly not. “
Benfica is better than most. Mil-Homens, 62, has been with Benfica since 2017 after working at Sporting Lisbon and, among several other advisory and educational positions, as a consultant for the Portuguese Olympic Committee.
The Benfica Campus reverts to opening by Eusebio in 2006, with nine pitches including a 2,721-spectator stadium, an 86-bed hotel and 28 dressing rooms, with approximately 400 players on site from children under 14 to Benfica B, professional. team playing in Liga Portugal 2. There are innovative measures, such as the 360S simulator, a device that took a year to install. With four walls built on an iron structure covering a total area of 253 square meters, the simulator uses LED lighting designed to improve player resolution and accuracy.
But Mil-Homens insists there is no secret to their success.
“It is very important to have a long-term view from your club board,” he explained. “You have to look ahead and understand that in order to develop a youth football project, you have to be patient. Nothing less than 10 years. If we hire a boy who is six or seven today, no – one can say, ‘This guy will be in the Premier League and that one will not. ‘He’s just leading.
“Hiring players is the first direction you can’t fail. It’s crucial. The raw material is essential to any process. They’re people, of course, but this is a business. In any business, you need the best raw material.for the best end result.This depends on the image of the player you want to have.
“Player recruitment is the key part. In addition, player development – the transformation of the raw material – needs to be well defined and have a strong long-term plan. The club’s program is to it is.
“The third really important thing is player management. At the age of 16, the players come to the transition to professional football, and this is where you should have a different path for different players. In Portugal, we are allowed to have a B. -team in our second division.It is a professional division and a very useful route for our best under-19 and under-20 players as they are open to football to good competitive.But we also have to decide something different if a player is not.prepare for that.We may need to borrow, or keep with us under the age of 23. A player’s management strategy should to have a very good structure for this final part of the 10-year strategy. “
Some of this may sound clinical, but the warmth of Mil-Homens and its team working with it is determined by the number of graduates who return to memories and bring them back. Cancelo and Silva are among several players who visited their former coaches and gave lectures to the regular students. Dias was the last to return before the international pandemic prevented him, and Felix is expected to make the trip later this year, assuming the conditions allow. His brother, Hugo, is still in the club’s under-19 group.
The financial impact of COVID-19 could tighten transfer taxes and increase the importance of major clubs extracting their own talent, but more immediate concern for Mil-Homens is that a tax that the pandemic inflicts on the youth of Benfica. Sessions were postponed in March with players sent home and although they were able to resume in September, the country is now locked in with an unknown end date.
A report by the major sports associations – including football, volleyball and basketball – recommended that new youth recordings be stopped, especially in areas where families had to make a financial payment to attend. That didn’t happen at Benfica (where no fees are charged), but sessions are now held over Zoom with players asking to report their physical activity through an app on their phones. They also get video clips of games to explore, more for their social interaction than any meaningful learning.
“What we’re doing now is just a bit of fun, to be completely honest,” said Mil-Homens. “If it was individual sport, we could load more physical activity. , but in football we have to play. We need the ball. We need to have at least two against two, three against three. One is against the monitor screen that’s not fair.
“We want for the first time now some awakening calls of mental and psychological obesity. When I have meetings with the coaches and they say, ‘This message from the player, they ask all the time. When I get back, it’s a bit of a chore to do this in front of the PC, just with permission to run around the corner, without any football activity. ‘”
When the youngsters are able to return, a surprise awaits them.
“We will open a gallery of former players on the changing room corridor,” said Mil-Homens. “They will see photos of graduates they are all familiar with with a short curriculum: on arrival at the club, the first game for the first team, where they are now. And then a faceless picture, asking, ‘Who will be next? ‘”
That question remains crucial for Benfica’s future.