FRISCO, Texas – FC Dallas held its annual Season Kickoff press conference today and the main topic at hand was the club’s new talent development partnership with Portuguese club SL Benfica.
Benfica is one of Portugal’s biggest clubs and a regular in the UEFA Champions League. More importantly from FC Dallas’ perspective, Benfica is known as one of the world’s top talent produces – whether that’s from its own academy or its vast scouting network.
World-renowned players like Bernardo Silva, Joao Felix, Joao Cancelo, Ruben Dias, Renato Sanches and many, many more can trace their roots back to Benfica’s vaunted academy. That’s not by happenstance, you can’t luck your way into multiple world-class players in such a short span of time. Benfica has the processes, knowhow, and expertise for developing top-level talent. And because of this new partnership, so will FC Dallas.
This information exchange is what sets this partnership apart. Compare it with FC Dallas’ previous development partnership with FC Bayern Munich. That partnership was more focused on individual player development, with select FC Dallas Academy players making an annual trip to Germany to train with the Bayern Munich academy (which also led to FCD Homegrown Chris Richards making a permanent transfer to Bayern). This partnership with Benfica is more holistic. It will involve changes to FCD’s academy structure and training schemes to become more in line with Benfica’s proven best practices.
FC Dallas President Dan Hunt: “We’re very thankful for the relationship with Bayern Munich. It really was fruitful and it’s obviously a great organization. But maybe our DNA is a little bit different than theirs. (Our DNA) is so much more similar to Benfica’s in the whole development and scouting process pathway. I feel like this is going to be much more of a two-way relationship. Benfica’s ethos as a club is finding and developing top talents globally. And we’re the same in wanting to find and develop top talents, too. We're maybe more aligned to that.”
The idea of this partnership has been in the works for over a year. FC Dallas Technical Director André Zanotta visited Benfica’s campus in Lisbon last August, with Benfica representatives making the trip to Frisco shortly after. The fact that FC Dallas broke its transfer record to bring in Benfica striker Petar Musa earlier this month is merely coincidental. This partnership deal is part of a long-term vision and purely player development/scouting focused.
“We're not here to sell T-shirts or sell out. This is not a marketing scheme,” said Bernardo Carvalho, Benfica’s Director of International Expansion. "This (partnership) is what we have decided to start for developing a worldwide constellation of academies where we create the international pathway.”
