FC Porto youngsters train in England with first team: “Standards are high” | OneFootball

Duarte Cunha and João Teixeira are among the FC Porto academy graduates called up by Francesco Farioli for the training camp at St. George’s Park, which began on Monday and is set to end this Saturday. The two Olival prospects reflected on the first few days of pre-season with the first team and expressed their ambition to make the most of the opportunity.

“Being here is a dream for me that is starting to become reality, being with this very strong group of players. Pre-season is there to prepare us physically, tactically and mentally. And we, the younger lads, learn so much more from them. It’s a huge difference. It’s been good for us,” stressed Duarte, the 18-year-old winger who represented the B team and the juniors in 2025/26, in comments to the club’s media channels.

João Teixeira, a 20-year-old midfielder who last season played mainly for the B team, highlighted the demands of the top level: “In the first team, the demands are high. We’re always prepared for whatever might happen during the season. Those training sessions we had at the start helped us a lot to arrive here in good physical condition after the holidays. We got used to being back on the pitch again.”

The forward also revealed that being involved in the first team’s pre-season work was a possibility he had been holding onto for some time: “Throughout the year I kept believing it was possible to be here for pre-season. I knew it was going to be very tough, but I also knew I’d be ready. The coach helps a lot too, the whole coaching staff helps a lot. And being in this environment, at the highest level in Portugal, always ends up benefiting us, and that will bear fruit in the future.”

The midfielder believes the step up from the B team to the first team has happened without major difficulties: “For us to develop and grow, we have to be surrounded by the best. It’s been a smooth adaptation. A lot of us younger lads came too, we’ve known each other for some time now, and that helps with the adjustment. The players are also easy-going with us. They always try to help us. The mentality they try to teach us here is that we have to give our all. The intensity and the demands will always be greater.”

Duarte Cunha, for his part, pointed to the importance of the mentality instilled by Farioli’s coaching staff: “The most important thing in football is mentality. The way we think, how we prepare for each training session, each game… And the coaching staff instils that mentality in us, because it’s the foundation. If we’re mentally strong and prepared for everything, we’ll be physically ready to train and give our best.”

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.