Nuno Pimentel on Porto U15s: “Mide and Mora speak the same language” | OneFootball

Today, the name Mateus Mide is well-known in the world of football, but at the beginning of 2022, the player who was voted the best at the Under-17 World Cup, won by Portugal this Thursday in Qatar, was just a kid making waves in FC Porto's Under-14 team. One level up, Nuno Pimentel was coaching the young dragons of the Under-15 team and, on those cold January days, decided to promote Mateus Mide and a colleague, Tomás Peixoto.

The current assistant to Pedro Emanuel at Al Fayha in Saudi Arabia, who also coaches the club's Under-21 team, was observing that generation of Under-14 players and, “based on the potential and quality he was already showing,” understood, along with the club, that it was time to elevate Mateus Mide to a new level. “He joined our squad and started earning his place. We mostly played in a 4-4-2 formation and he played the role of a second forward, a mobile player... He needs to see the game from the front. In a 4-3-3, for me, he wouldn’t be the center forward,” he began to explain, justifying the promotion: “He needed to face more challenges, both in attack and defense. At that time, he hadn't yet gone through the maturation leap, he was almost at the navel level of some opponents. He gained aggressiveness, gained intensity, and made use of his intelligence.”

The coach, who in Portugal was also an assistant at V. Setúbal, Belenenses, and Santa Clara, integrated Mide into a team that already included another blue and white promise, a year older, Rodrigo Mora. “He also stood out. Some other players from the current juniors as well, like Léo Fajardo, Tiago Silva, Filipe Sousa, and perhaps the player who has grown the most, André Miranda,” highlighted Nuno Pimentel, who saw no problem in lining up Mide and Mora in the same eleven: “As we played in a 4-4-2, Mora played more on the left, from outside to inside, and Mide paired with another forward. But they coexisted naturally, made some exchanges... They speak the same language.”

This harmony, the coach assures, is reflected in common traits on the technical, personal, and even family levels among the young players. In terms of play, Mide possesses a profile capable of providing various solutions to his team. “Mateus has a great ability to find spaces and has another distinguishing feature, which is the ability to think quickly and well. It seems like things are easy because he has great execution speed. I also see him playing on a wing, but honestly, he is more someone who needs to have the freedom to find the game. He has great definition and finishing skills, but in my opinion, not to play as a center forward,” he stated.

Given his knowledge of Mateus Mide's past, we challenged Nuno Pimentel to reflect on what could (and should) be the young player's future. The main guideline is clear. “At these ages, the fundamental thing is to compete. Promoting him just for the sake of it doesn't work. In a training context, I believe it happens more frequently, but he needs to compete in games, preferably at a level that challenges him, but without skipping stages that prevent him from evolving. Always step by step,” he mentioned, concluding with a wish of good luck to his former pupil and with a very practical idea: “May luck be with him, may he not have injuries, which is also important. He is a distinguished player and, therefore, if everything goes normally, he will be a player who will emerge in the short and medium term. At this moment, it's about enjoying the success, but the next step will always be to return to Olival and train like an animal.”

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