Today I would like to draw the reader’s attention to a new focus weekly report. The new Benfica youth weekly news will be released on this website, a weekly report dedicated to Benfica’s youth ranks, results and player descriptions that hopefully will interest the benfica fan or rival.A bit of history may help…

For those that don’t remember or (don’t want to) Benfica in the late 90’s elected Joao Vale e Azevedo as president. At the time, this successful Portuguese corporate lawyer was quite inconspicuous and anonymous to the public eye. He took the helm of Benfica presidency with the following objectives.

• To build a young and exciting team.
• To form the Portuguese national squad from Benfica.
• To increase revenue and profitability.
• To bring in a couple of superstars.

12 months after here were the results of Mr. Vale e Azevedo’s presidency.

• Closed all Benfica school’s and potential of bringing up a new Rui Costa, Paulo Sousa, Manuel Fernandes and so forth…
• Out of 8 signings, 6 were British of very dubious quality. (Steve Harkness, Brian Deane, Scott Minto, Michael Thomas, Dean Saunders and the outstanding Mark Pembridge)
• No superstars, 1-2 portuguese players and money was missing on a daily basis. Benfica fans and others will remember the boat that the president bought worth 500,000 Euros called “Lucky Me” with the club’s money. Only God and some Swiss bankers know where the other millions have gone… well, this character is now under arrest but has left Benfica under serious financial stress for a few years.
• Decided not to renew Deco’s contract due to a request from the Almightly Crap Graeme Souness who suggested Deco to be an average player. As we can see, Graeme Souness is not one to judge player potential - Republic of Ireland beware!!!

In 2002, when Luis Felipe Vieira took over, one of his objectives was to create training facilities for the main squad and to make a “Viveiro”. A breeding ground for young kids to flourship and develop into world stars of football, basically what Benfica did in the 60’s, 70’s 80’s and early 90’s.

Mission accomplished, apparently. The government, at the time thought education and hospital beds were unimportant so decided to give Benfica lots of money and so the president began the project…

The discussions and street talk on the “Juniores” (17 yrs-19 yrs) and “Juvenis A and B” (14 yrs – 17yrs) have been steadily increasing since Manuel Fernandes, Helio Roque and Joao Pereira were introduced to the Senior Squad by Jose Antonio Camacho 3 years ago. Nowadays, the benfica youth website www.serbenfiquista.com is proving to be just as, if not more successful than the club’s official website, www.slbenfica.pt with thousands of fans clicking on a daily basis to check scores and the chat on the new kids on the block…

Next week,

Stay tuned for Benfica Vs. Sporting report and a description of one the upcoming players.

Roberto Reynolds