Where the model comes from
Into the 2000s Benfica was a club with a great history and poor accounts. The European Cup wins of 1961 and 1962 were long past, the debts were high, the academy was scattered across several sites in Lisbon.
Under president Luís Filipe Vieira, who took office in 2003, the academy was rethought. The decision to build a central campus had a sporting and a financial reason. Sporting, because Benfica could not keep up with Porto, which was dominating Europe in the Mourinho years. Financial, because the club recognised that Portuguese talent has a price on the European market that exceeds the investment in an academy many times over.
The campus in Seixal opened in 2006. It comprises several grass and artificial pitches, a boarding facility, a school, medical facilities and the first team's training ground. Every age group and the professionals train in the same place.
Two further decisions shaped the model. In 2012 the Portuguese federation allowed B teams in the second division — Benfica B became the bridge between youth and professionals. And with the Benfica Lab the club built a department for sports science, data analysis and performance diagnostics that serves every team.
The structure
Everything in one place
The campus is the foundation. A twelve-year-old sees every day where the first team trains. A professional sees where the next generation comes from. The coaches of the age groups talk daily. This physical proximity is not a detail. It is the reason permeability works at Benfica and exists only on paper at many other clubs.
Scouting in greater Lisbon
Benfica scouts above all in greater Lisbon, which with around three million people covers roughly a third of the Portuguese population. Children come early into Benfica pre-academies and partner programmes; the most talented move into the academy between eight and twelve. The club competes here with Sporting, whose academy in Alcochete lies only a few kilometres away. Competing for the same children has made both academies better.
There is also a network in the former Portuguese colonies — Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Brazil — from which players come to Seixal. Renato Sanches and Nélson Semedo are examples of players from Lisbon suburbs with roots in Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau.
The boarding facility
Around 70 players live on the campus, many from the north of Portugal, from the islands or from abroad. School, training, nutrition and care all happen in the same place. That is expensive, but it allows Benfica to bring players from the whole country without forcing families to move.
Benfica B as a bridge
This is the part that separates Benfica most sharply from German clubs. Benfica B plays in the Portuguese second division — against adult professional teams, for points, in front of a crowd. An eighteen-year-old leaving the academy plays one or two years of men's football there before he comes into contention for the first team or is sold.
Bruno Lage coached Benfica B before taking over the first team in 2019 and winning the title — with a side into which he built João Félix, Rúben Dias and Florentino Luís from the B team. Renato Paiva, Nélson Veríssimo and others took the same route.
The comparison with Germany is unfair, because there the fourth tier is the highest level for reserve teams. But it shows why Portuguese talents often seem more mature at twenty than German ones: they have two years of second-division men's football behind them.
Benfica Lab
The sports science department supports every age group: performance diagnostics, load management, video analysis, nutrition, psychology. For youth players that means individual profiles from an early stage. The club knows how a player is developing physically and can adapt training and load.
What is documented: Benfica relies heavily on individualisation. Every player has a development plan that is reviewed regularly. The academy employs psychologists who work with the players — not as crisis intervention but as part of the education.
How they train
Benfica has no public curriculum. What is consistently described in reports by coaches and visitors:
One playing idea across all age groups. As at the other great academies — La Masia, Ajax — every Benfica team plays a related idea: building from the back, positional play, dominance in possession, high pressing. The 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 is the shape, but the focus is on principles.
Technique as the foundation, decisions as the goal. Portuguese development traditionally places great value on technique under pressure. That has to do with futsal, which is widespread in Portuguese children's football — tight spaces, quick decisions, many ball contacts. Many Portuguese professionals played futsal before they came to the eleven-a-side game.
Small game forms. Children's football in Portugal is played for a long time on small pitches with few players. 7 v 7 up to U11, 9 v 9 up to U13. In the academy, forms with four to seven players a side dominate.
Position-specific work early. Unlike Ajax, Benfica specialises earlier. From around U14 there is targeted work on position-specific skills, with individual training alongside team training.
Tactical periodisation in the background. Portugal is the country of Vítor Frade and tactical periodisation. Many coaches in Seixal studied at the University of Porto or at Lisbon faculties where the method is taught. Weekly planning in the academy follows a related logic: game forms instead of isolated conditioning, days with different focuses. How strictly this is applied varies by coach.
Competition as a means of development. Benfica youth teams play for titles. The U19 won the UEFA Youth League in 2022. Unlike at Ajax, results are not secondary — Benfica sees winning as part of the education.
The selling model
Benfica develops in order to sell. The club says so openly. João Félix went to Atlético Madrid in 2019 for around 126 million euros, at nineteen, after one season in the first team. João Neves moved to Paris Saint-Germain in 2024 at nineteen, Gonçalo Ramos to the same club in 2023. Rúben Dias, Bernardo Silva, João Cancelo — all sold before they were 25.
The logic: a player who leaves at nineteen for 100 million finances the academy for a decade. Benfica reinvests in scouting, infrastructure and coaches. The model is stable because it carries itself.
The price: in the last 15 years Benfica has never held a side together for long. Every good generation is sold after one or two years. The club wins championships, but in Europe it rarely goes beyond the quarter-final.
The criticism
Early sales cost development years. As at Ajax, the player leaves before the last step of his education is complete. João Félix has never again reached the level of his one season in Lisbon. Renato Sanches was sold to Bayern at eighteen for 35 million and his career did not develop as it looked like it would. That is not Benfica's fault — but it shows the limit of the model.
The academy serves the business. Developing in order to sell is a legitimate model. But it changes priorities. A player with a market value is treated differently from one without. The criticism of that is loud in Portugal itself.
Competition with Sporting. Both academies scout the same children in the same area. That drives quality, but also the pressure on families. Reports of early signings, incentives and conflicts between the clubs appear regularly.
Weak documentation of the method. Benfica's strength is structure, not method. There is no book, no doctrine you could read up on. What transfers is the organisation.
Application: what you can take from it
This section is our interpretation.
Benfica is a lesson in structure. For an individual coach little transfers directly. For a club, a fair amount does.
Make the step into senior football a project
The biggest loss of talent in German amateur football happens between U19 and the seniors. Benfica has a whole team for it. An amateur club can at least have a plan: who from the U19 trains with the seniors from the second half of the season? Who plays in the reserve side? Who looks after the transition? Without a plan the player goes to the neighbouring club or stops.
See futsal and small-sided football as development, not as a substitute
Portuguese players spend a lot of time in tight spaces as children. Futsal in winter instead of indoor football with boards. Indoors, 3 v 3 instead of 6 v 6. Ball contacts per player rise, and so does decision speed.
One development plan per player
Benfica Lab is infrastructure no amateur club has. The core is still transferable: every player has a profile that is updated twice a season and one or two things he is working on. That costs time, not technology.
Winning and developing do not have to exclude each other
Benfica contradicts the Ajax dogma. The academy plays for titles and still develops. The difference lies in how it wins: with the playing idea, with players in their development positions, with rotating playing time. Not with long balls to the early developer.
One site, one conversation
If every team trains in the same place, the coaches talk to each other. If the youth teams train on a side pitch three kilometres away, they do not. Wherever it is possible: shared training times, shared coaching meetings, a shared language.
What to take away
- Benfica Seixal has been a central campus for all age groups and the professionals since 2006. The physical proximity is the reason for the permeability.
- Benfica B in the second division is the bridge: two years of men's football between the academy and the first team.
- The Benfica Lab supplies individual profiles and load management from an early stage.
- Scouting concentrates on greater Lisbon and the Portuguese-speaking world, in direct competition with Sporting.
- The model is a selling model and carries itself. The price is early departures and teams that never stay together.
- What transfers is the structure: the step into senior football as a project, small-sided football and futsal, development plans, one site for everyone.
Player history in Coach OS travels with the player when he moves up an age group — the new coach sees what was last worked on. That is the smallest building block of what Benfica does with the Lab across every team.
FAQ: frequently asked questions
Sources and further reading
- CIES Football Observatory: reports on training clubs and transfer income, in which Benfica has led for years.
- Reports and features on the Benfica Campus and the Benfica Lab in Portuguese and international sports media.
- Interviews with Bruno Lage, Renato Paiva and former academy directors on permeability and the role of Benfica B.
- UEFA reports on the Youth League and on European academies.
- On the role of futsal in Portuguese development: interviews with Portuguese internationals and FPF federation documents.
A note on the evidence: Benfica publishes no curriculum. The description of the training rests on reports from within the club's environment. Transfer fees are base amounts according to media reports and vary by source.