Tomaz Morais praises FC Porto youth set-up: “Congrats” | OneFootball

It was in this context that Sporting began to focus on identifying young talents aged “15 or 16”, with “the results plain to see”. Morais then pointed to names such as Rafael Nel, Blopa, Quenda, João Simões and Flávio Nascimento as examples of the recent strong form of Sporting’s academy.

Tomaz Morais also addressed the negotiations involving players from rival clubs:

“My personal opinion is that we believe in the player’s long-term development. That is what we have been doing. The earlier talent arrives at Sporting, the greater the chances of reaching the first team. Data is fundamental. Player movement has to be healthy, agreed with the clubs, not us going around trying to take players from Benfica and FC Porto. We have been talking for the good of Portuguese football. We also have to speak with the families, explain what academy training is. Our pedagogy centre is immense. First, we believe in developing the person. Whether he becomes a player or not comes afterwards. The battle comes in senior football, in my opinion.”

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