Youth development key for Porto
Developing local talent and identifying potential foreign stars early is paramount for Portuguese champions
Of the teams that have lifted the Champions League in the past 20 years, one team stand out.
Engraved on the trophy alongside the likes of European giants like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester United is the Jose Mourinho's Porto side of 2003/04.
The Portuguese side are bona fide minnows in that company, and their success is down to a combination of an astute transfer policy and a strong focus on youth development.
Before being fined for failing to comply with Uefa's Financial Fair Play regulations last year, Porto earned themselves a reputation as a model for smaller clubs to follow.
From 2004 to 2015, they made over 600 million euros (S$947.5m) in player sales, including 80 million euros from the departures of just Hulk and Radamel Falcao.
In addition, the club's youth system has produced Portuguese internationals like Andre Silva, Ruben Neves, Bruno Alves and Vitor Baia.
Porto's youth sector technical director Carlos Campos told The New Paper: "The Portuguese league does not have the same kind of money as other leagues, like La Liga and the English Premier League.
"To compete with teams from other leagues, we need to have very good organisation, we need to have a very good youth department, we need to see the best players in our youth department and away in other countries.
"We need to find them before other clubs, and that's the way that we try to have success."
Describing the club's approach to youth development, Campos added: "We want to have ball possession, we want to have a good positional game, we need to have technically high-level players.
"But I think that every club in the world want to have high-level technical players.
"The difference is in the character of the players.
"We want players who are competitive.
"We need players who are aggressive, we need players that want to win every time - the important matches, the not-so-important matches in training sessions."
Aspiring young players in Singapore can experience Porto's youth development techniques when the Porto International Academy holds their player development camp here from May 27-30.
The camp is for boys and girls aged 12 to 16, with the newly crowned Primeira Liga champions' Under-10 academy head coach Hugo Machado among the four coaches the club are sending over to Singapore.
Said Campos: "This detail is crucial because people who come here will have all the knowledge about the methodology and values of the club.
"We need to provide our best coaches when we go abroad. We are not in Singapore just to have training sessions.
"We are in Singapore to share our methodology, to share our model and leave a basis for the future."
- For details on Porto International Academy's player development camp, visit www.bit.ly/dulwichcollegecamp
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