“FC Porto’s youth development model has changed” | OneFootball

José Tavares, FC Porto’s director of youth development, stated that next season’s first-team squad will include players coming through the club’s academy ranks, stressing that, under André Villas-Boas, “the academy paradigm has changed.”

The statement was made this Thursday during the fourth Bola Branca Conference, held at the Renascença auditorium in Lisbon. The FC Porto official highlighted that the commitment to young talent is guaranteed for the 2026/27 season, arguing that they “will be in the right place at the right time.”

“The start of the first team will already have something there. Our coach has already shown that publicly. They will be in the right place at the right time,” said José Tavares, adding that the new board, led by André Villas-Boas, has brought “greater investment in infrastructure, culture and human resources” linked to youth development.

According to the director, there is now “a real strategic alignment between the academy and the first team,” also stressing that youth football is “much more than winning a championship” and calling for “developing players to succeed in life” to become a standard for society.

As for women’s football, whose first team has already secured promotion to the top division, Tavares explained that development happens more quickly. “The development of women’s football is extremely important. Women’s football has a shorter maturation process, but already with all age groups in place,” he said, expressing confidence in the future.

“We believe that before long we will start supplying the national teams with made-in-FC Porto talent and will develop women’s football with talent bearing the FC Porto stamp,” he concluded.

The fourth Bola Branca Conference, dedicated to the theme “Excellence in Football,” featured names such as Luís Montenegro, André Villas-Boas, Pepijn Lijnders, Antonio Gagliardi, Pedro Proença and Reinaldo Teixeira, and discussed the paths to success in domestic and international football.

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