When i grew up grassroots in Portugal were much different to the English grassroots.
In Portugal young players from the ages of 11yo played in small stadias similar to what you get here at non-league except that there was no grass, pitches were of beaten sand, a fence around. This was the local community club, I happened to live right opposite ours with only a road separating us.
Most the local players usually attended trials at our local club and the main coach was a local fusilier corporal who’s discipline was bar non. Rain or shine players turned up for training & matches muddy pitches when the odd downpour happened, no shippads? some pads just about to hold were used.
Match days were attended by parents and local people, with local pork steak, Minute steak sandwiches etc all on the grill and at very reasonable prices.
I remember kids on top of the dugout that was black and Green, hanging for a better view, only to be told for the 6th time to get out.
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| Old Sand Pitch |
The type of league they played was the only league available at the time, it was a county/district league, (still the same until today) teams would play similar standard clubs and travel as far as 50miles to play games.
There was no stand but there was fences and admission was free for youth games. A senior game was at the time equivalent of £3-5 but we used to just jump the fence to watch these.
Players not playing for the local club would have smaller pitches and play occasionally in small 5-a-side tournaments, there was no astro turf, the grass in Portugal was rare to parks only and where we played was on 5-a-side concrete pitches or have a kick around on the park when the park keepers were off, so you would really mostly pick players from watching them or from trials, mostly were raw talent or from word of mouth.
But for our local clubs there were always the best players, the standard was very good, the level of play was always decent, and 11 year old knocking 35yrd passes with no problem, A good number of players would get picked to go on trial to Sporting Lisbon, Benfica or Beleneses aswell as the local 2nd division Barreirense.
There was always problems with our youth sides and adult sides mainly being we were from a multi ethnic neighbourhood, mostly kids from the Portuguese colonies (Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde) the racial abuse was always heard and as much as you tried to ignore it, it was not for everyone’s liking.
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| New Generation Pitches and Players |
But from my experience of youth football in England and in Portugal its that it is a more organised set up, what you get here at academies you get in Portugal at local clubs.
There was no parents running teams and the community was involved in the running of the club, social clubs play a big part in this and events and local grants make sure that it helps run the clubs.
England have a more relaxed way and Sunday Youth Leagues although help players in greater numbers the quality is different, as an 11 year old is good in 1 team in a Sunday Youth league in England, in Portugal there are a possible 6/7 in their local clubs and 4/5 will go on to professional teams as they are clubs who feed the bigger professional teams.
From what i have encountered in England is the opposite at a lot of clubs. Some Sunday teams will try to stop players from going on trials, or refuse to allow scouts to speak to players parents because they believe that they will not have a balanced team if the player signs for a pro club.
http://vimeo.com/10499263
This might be one of the reasons a lot of players fall under the radar in England and possibly the question.. did we just miss the next Theo Walcott?
Ricardo Soares
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