The most striking thing about watching Sporting CP in their friendly win against Celtic on Tuesday wasn’t that they had excellent players.
That’s to be expected. Eye-opening, however, was the fact that many of their best performers were teenagers with only a handful of first-team appearances.
To be clear, this isn’t at all an attack on the Celtic youngsters who played a part. Several of them have looked impressive in the club’s two pre-season outings so far – Martin O’Neill admitted after the game that the plethora of second-half changes left the team tactically disjointed.
But clearly, Sporting are operating on a different level.
Defeat for Celtic in Portugal! 🚨🤔🍀
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Factors behind Sporting CP’s superior youth academy
Of the factors behind Sporting’s youngsters being superior to Celtic’s, several are out of the Hoops’ control.
The most obvious is that SCP operate in a nation and metropolitan area which are both roughly double that of Celtic’s in population.
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But it’s nowhere near as simple as that. Much like city neighbours Benfica, Sporting’s academy set-up is one of the best in Europe.
Their Cristiano Ronaldo Academy, opened in 2002 and renamed in 2020, has made the club almost 400 million euros in player sales.
It also produced no less than ten members of Portugal’s Euro 2016-winning squad.
Back-to-back Champions League-winning PSG left-back Nuno Mendes is the latest superstar, whilst 19-year-old winger Geovany Quenda has just made a £43 million move to Chelsea.
Clearly, investment has played a part in this, but so has their heritage. Eating in a café with several Ballon d’Or winners on the wall must be pretty compelling to a young footballer.
Another crucial difference is the B-team setup, widely ridiculed at Celtic in recent years.
Whilst the Hoops play in Scotland’s regional fifth-tier in the Lowland League, Sporting’s under-21s were promoted to the Portuguese second division last year, finishing 13th of 18 in their maiden campaign there.
Cultural debates continue about whether B-team integration at a higher level would be a net positive for the Scottish game, but it’s clearly working wonders in Portugal.
What’s the point of Celtic’s Academy?
Should Celtic just give it up as the club seem incapable of making the Academy work.
Brexit continues to harm academies at Celtic and Scotland
Also out of Celtic’s control is the Brexit situation, which has left them and their Scottish neighbours more exposed to academy players being poached than any other European country.
Bordering the richest league in the world is a geographical disadvantage in itself, but the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU has given Premier League clubs exclusive access to Scottish players aged younger than 18.
Celtic’s recent developments at Barrowfield were framed by the club as a direct counter to this, but the period since has already seen Dara Jikiemi and Erskine Rennie depart.
The club will be hoping that the real rewards will come in the longer term.
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