Tomaz Morais explains what sets Sporting apart from Benfica and Porto | OneFootball

What sets Sporting apart from Benfica and Porto in youth development? That was one of the questions put to Sporting’s general director of youth development, Tomaz Morais, who said that those who work at the Alcochete Academy live the Club very intensely.

"I can say that our way of doing things is very passionate. When we enter the academy and work for our male players and also for our female players, we do it with tremendous passion for development. Perhaps what sets us apart is the fact that we really enjoy working with each player and having a tailored individual development plan for the needs of our players, as well as some programmes that allow us to make the most of those we feel are better prepared to move into professional football, whether in the first team or the B team, with good results," he said at the ANTF forum.

The 55-year-old director — who had already praised the work done at Alvalade — reinforced his view. "That is what we do every day: prepare them for that moment. The opportunity will come and they will have to seize it. The player is the one who plays, no one is going to play for him, and we try to instil in them a very strong sense of responsibility, valuing an essential element: autonomy", he said.

On the relationship between the youth ranks and Sporting’s senior team, Tomaz Morais has no doubt that it is healthy. "The relationship between the academy and the first team is very good, fortunately, and no club functions well if that relationship is not very good, very clear, and if people do not know how to work together and understand what the first team needs, work towards that, and try to respond to those needs and their urgency," he said.

Tomaz Morais also highlighted the importance of youth development. "Everything starts in development. Very often, when we look at the player and the game, we look at the end product and what we see on television every day, or what we seek to watch at the stadium, but it is important to understand that for a player to reach that stage, he goes through a very long process involving many people, many coaches, all of them very different, and coordinating that development process, built on a strong structure, can produce players capable of reaching professional football and the elite," he concluded.

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