Portuguese and Brazilian youth football legends in new deal

Sporting Clube de Portugal has signed a partnership with Internacional de Porto Alegre, focusing on youth training and the sharing of scouting information. Representing Sporting CP were Alvalade board members Rui Caeiro and Luís Roque, in addition to SAD administrator Guilherme Pereira. For the Brazilians, vice-president Roberto Melo and director of football Deive Bandeira were on hand.

"Inter is one of Brazil's most historic clubs in term of youth training", said Luís Roque reflecting on the deal, continuing: "The club has sent a lot of players to Europe in recent years and they have a really rich training tradition. That is why we wanted to sign this partnership. Our histories coincide and so do out interests. This will be about sharing information on players...These agreements include players who are at the advanced stages of youth football and who can come into our B team. It complements what we already do and who knows, maybe even a Sporting Academy in Brazil could materialise."

Roberto Melo was also visibly satisfied with the deal, noting: "It is a pleasure to be here to sign this partnership, which I think is really important to our two clubs, who are both known for their youth football. Both clubs have more than 100,000 members and more than 100 years of history. I am sure this will translate into a successful partnership."

CIES study puts Alvalade well ahead of the rest of the Portuguese pack

Sporting CP occupies 4th place in terms of youth training in European football, in a study undertaken by the International centre for Sports Studies (CIES). Alvalade sits just behind Ajax, Partizan and Dynamo Zagreb in terms of players participating in European leagues.

A total of 54 players produced at the Sporting Academy can be found across Europe, eight of which are still playing at Alvalade.

Aurélio Pereira in UEFA interview about the Alvalade youth system

He arrived in Alvalade at the age of just 14 and years later he was invited back to the club by Hilário, where he would remain for two decades as a youth team coach. In July 1988 he opened the youth football department and went on to discover Luís Figo, Cristiano Ronaldo, Paulo Futre, Simão Sabrosa, Ricardo Quaresma, Nani and an endless list of others.

Aurélio Pereira sat down with UEFA this week to reflect in his time with the Sporting Academy, even revealing some of the tricks to his magical recipe for nurturing talent.

“As soon as we made contact with a player coming from far away, our objective focuses on bringing him over to the Sporting Academy. We are responsible for a massive change in the lives of young players who could become greats one day. We look to build up the lads as players, but also as men. We focus on everything involved in their development and that forges a special link between us. I have known some of the lads who are now in the main team since they were just 12 years' old. We are like family", opened the Alvalade scouting legend, going on to speak about Cristiano Ronaldo: "When we were building the Academy, the players had to move away from the old stadium and come and live at the residence. There was a road nearby where Ronaldo would go. He would put weights on his legs and when the traffic lights turned green he started sprinting. He did that a lot, because he thought it would give him speed and strength. That gives us an idea of what these lads go through."

Popular Italian newpaper praises the Sporting Football Factory

"A cradle of talent that continued to a page in the country's history", wrote the Italian newspaper Gazzetta about the Sporting Academy in an article this weekend, as part of a piece on João Mário's record-breaking transfer to Inter Milan.

The well-known Italian publication also mentioned Sporting's glory years, including the Five Violins and 1964 Cup Winners' Cup, before exploring the transfers of Made in Sporting players João Mário, Cristiano Ronaldo, João Moutinho, Nani, Quaresma, Cédric and José Fonte and the quality of Rui Patrício, Adrien and William Carvalho.

Academy renews EN ISO 9001:2008 stamp of approval

Sporting Clube de Portugal, Futebol SAD (Alcochete Football Academy), has once again been recognised with the International Organisation for Standardisation's quality management certificate, seeing the club once again awarded certificate NP EN ISO 9001:2008.

The external audit team analysed:

• Conformity and system effectiveness with the audit criteria;
• System Effectiveness for guaranteeing compliance with regulations, statutes, law and contract applicable to the activity of sports organisations (identification, control and verification of conformity);
• System effectiveness for guaranteeing continued compliance with defined objective and an organisational capacity to systematically provide a product and/or service in line with applicable requisites;
• Needs for improving the organisational system.

The certification was renewed after it was deemed that the Sporting Academy ticks all of the necessary boxes. The team responsible for the quality of Sporting's world famous academy would like to thank everybody involved.

French magazine on Sporting's football factory

The article opens with a statement from Bruno de Carvalho, in December 2015: “Cristiano Ronaldo was trained here. That is message directly for Dubai." Three months later, France Football has highlighted the power of Sporting's very own football factory, the Sporting Academy, for having "trained two of the three Portuguese Ballon d'Or winners."

Over two pages, the article makes reference to Luís Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo, as well Sporting's role as the major provider of players for the national team.

France Football also speaks about Sporting's Luso-Frenchman, Adrien. "It is a dream come true, but it was hard being away from my family", explains Adrien, before thanking the club "for training me as a player, but more importantly as a person."

SJPF, APAF and ANTF together at the Sporting Academy

‘On the pitch we play the same game'. That is the name aptly given to a new imitative between the Professional Football Players Syndicate (SJPF), the Portuguese Football Referees Association (APAF) and the National Football Coaches Association (ANTF), with the objective of promoting healthy attitudes between players, referees, directors and coaches. Kicking off the campaign, Sporting CP opened the doors of the Academy, in a ceremony attended by Bruno de Carvalho, Sporting president, José Gomes, APAF president, Joaquim Evangelista, SJPF president, Duarte Gomes, former international referee, and Jorge Jesus, Sporting's coach.

“Sporitng immediately accepted the proposal to host this group and to join in the initiative, in similar fashion to other things we have been doing relative to Portuguese football. The relation ship between the SJPF and CP, regardless of things that might be going on, have been healthy. We have met in the middle ground and made the compromises needed in Portuguese football. While I defend the the interests of the players, it is president Bruno de Carvalho who defends the interests of Sporting", introduced Joaquim Evangelista, continuing with an explaination of the initiative: "We want to find solutions at home. People talk a lot about football and it worries us that such discussions end up conditioning those who are involved in the game. We will create a space for dialog, where we can explain things to players and coaches about refereeing."

Also commenting on the initiative, Bruno de Carvalho proved happy with the steps being taken in Portuguese and international football: "If there is something we want and that we fight for at Sporting, it is a better game. There were two issues which clearly bring together Sporting and the Players Syndicate. Firstly, the use of funds had to end and secondly, technology. The players., who were the ones who were supposed to benefit from funds, where the ones who fought the hardest to finish them. Technology will also be a reality in football. We are all human and we all make mistakes, but the only people who didn't have the benefit of technology where the referees. We are really happy, because it was a tough two years, but we have scored two big wings for football."

Ledman CEO Martin Lee in Alcochete

The Sporting Academy hosted a visit from the new sponsors of II Liga this week. Also attending the visit of the Chinese company Ledman was the president of the Portuguese Professional Football League, Pedro Proença. "China is doing a lot in sports training now and with them wanting to learn so much, we couldn't let the chance to visit the Sporting Academy go", affirmed Pedro Proença about the visit.

The committee, headed by CEO Martin Lee, was hosted by Vírgilio Lopes. After a guided visit around the vast complex, Martin Lee himself explained what led to investment in Portugal: "The Chinese football market is only starting now. We are here to study and to learn about football culture and the training system used in Portugal."

The objective, affirmed the Ledman CEO, is to "link Portuguese and Chinese football and to train more quality Chinese players". Speaking on the same links, Pedro Proença added that "the Chinese have three main objective over the coming years: to quality for the World Cup, to organise a World Cup and to win the World Cup."

The visit finished with a presentation of an official Sporting shirt to Martin Lee.