Sporting director explains forced change to first-team plans | OneFootball

Tomaz Morais, Sporting’s academy director, explained this Thursday, May 28, that the Club felt the need to change the Academy’s strategy in recent years due to the low number of players reaching the first team.

Speaking at Rádio Renascença’s Bola Branca conference, the Sporting official admitted that the reality of youth development at Alvalade forced a change in approach: “The club’s sustainability and the projection of its youth-development DNA required those players to be in the first team. We were buying players and not bringing academy players into the first team,” Tomaz Morais began.

The executive then explained that Sporting created a new project focused on speeding up the integration of young talents into professional football. “We set up a project and had the courage to make full use of the entire legacy of youth football”, he added.

As examples of that work, Tomaz Morais pointed to recent cases such as Geovany Quenda, João Simões and Salvador Blopa, players who benefited from that accelerated process within Sporting’s structure: “Every player matters”, reinforced the green-and-white academy director, highlighting the importance of maintaining a strong link between the Academy and the first team.

Tomaz Morais also revealed that there is frequent dialogue among the so-called big clubs in Portuguese football regarding youth development work, although he made his position on recruiting young talent clear.

“First the person’s development, then we’ll see if he becomes a player,” he stressed, explaining that he does not support the “stealing” of athletes between clubs, only admitting possible moves made in a consensual and open manner.

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