adminPetros Kausiyo in ALCOCHETE, Portugal
SPORTING Lisbon Under-17 assistant coach Jose Caldeira has revealed his admiration for touring Legends Football Academy’s players with their discipline, commitment to duty and technical levels among the traits that have charmed the gaffer.
Caldeira has been working with Legends Academy players since Monday when they began the real business of their sojourn to Portugal.
The Legends delegation is housed at the Cristiano Ronaldo Academy where their training and assessment has been getting intense by the day.
What charmed Caldeira is that the gulf between those in Europe and this class of players in terms of technique, talent and ability to adapt was not as big as he may have feared.
“They are very good players. Of course, they still have a lot to learn because they are young players but they have shown good technique, good discipline and willingness to learn and to work,” Caldeira said.
The Cristiano Ronaldo Academy has regularly opened its doors to players from Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau.
Interestingly, those African countries whose young players have largely been afforded a chance to hone their skills here are former Portuguese colonies.
Farai Dhliwayo and his teenagers are thus the first Zimbabwean outfit to have the rare opportunity to train and be assessed in the professional set up that Portuguese football giants Sporting Lisbon offer.
And the Legends director and coach while not hiding his joy, has insisted that even he is also on a learning mission.
“The training and assessment camp to Sporting Lisbon’s Cristiano Ronaldo Academy is not only a life-changing experience for the young players but also an opportunity for Legends Football Academy Zimbabwe to learn from the best,” Dhliwayo said.
“We chose and nurtured a relationship with Sporting Lisbon for a specific reason.
“They are the only football academy in the world to develop two World Footballers of the Year, Luis Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo”.
For Dhliwayo, exposing his protégés to such a high-level coaching and professional environment was not only beneficial to the touring party but an inspiration to young players across Zimbabwe.
He is convinced that the players are learning from the best and their mission here will be as insightful as it is educative.
“This means they have a formula and methodology that works and one we can learn from. We chose to learn from the best and provide the insights to our academy players.
“Football is a vocational sport. Our long-term goal is to start producing players capable of following a pathway and eventually integrating into top European teams.
“Policy, principles and standards. These are the consistent issues that have also stood out most from my discussions with the executive and coaches so far,” he said.
Dhliwayo and his charges have been amazed at having to train adjacent the venue where Sporting Lisbon and some of Portugal’s high profile players are housed.
As club policy though, the first team’s training is a closed and special enclosure.
“We are in a massive multi-million-dollar facility, training a few yards away from first team footballers worth £40 million yet we find both players and staff in this environment are humble, focused and pulling in the same direction”.
Online Reporter