Benfica Elite Training Camps Youth Football

Taking place at Benfica Campus, the 2023 edition of the Elite Training Camps took place over the last four weeks, between June 25 and July 22, and had a total of 375 athlete registrations, a record number for men and for the week dedicated to women's football.

With 316 registrations in the men's section and 59 in the women's section, the program, which focuses on elite training and has the Club's methodology as its foundation, gave young players the opportunity to develop and improve their sports performance.

At the Elite Training Camps, the Club's coaches - 26 out of a total of 41 staff members - monitored the players' process and progress through physical tests, medical examinations and training sessions. The weekly plan also included a training session on nutrition.

"In all the training sessions and moments, we go to all the individual and collective components. We have our training model for the week, where we prioritize our offensive and defensive organization, transitions and all moments of the game, but we also prioritize their individual part. One of the things we ask right at the beginning is what they want to improve and from there we focus on that and at the end we summarize what their training was like", explained Filipe Ferreira, SL Benfica's under-11 coach.

In this way, the participants, between the U-12 and U-20 levels, had contact with the excellence of the Benfica Campus and the Benfica culture, with 40 countries represented: South Africa, Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Spain, Switzerland, Estonia, Poland, Brazil, United States of America, Portugal, Israel, Turkey, Nigeria, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Romania, England, Andorra, Australia, Austria, Colombia, Georgia, Japan, Jordan, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Scotland, Sweden, Ukraine, Angola and Egypt.

"The context where they work is different, especially the foreigners. They are not used to our methodology, way of working, very decision-based and that's what we try to show here. We do drills that we usually do with our teams, also for them to take from here to their contexts and apply to improve", claimed Miguel Geraldes, SL Benfica's U-9 coach.

In a year of records, Tiago Silva, project coordinator, took stock of the 2023 edition of Elite Training Camps.

"The registrations far exceeded our expectations. In March, they were already sold out, which had never happened before, combined with Benfica's results in the Champions League, which greatly attracted the fact that we had Gonçalo Ramos, António Silva, and João Neves, all these athletes from the Academy representing our first team. It was a positive surprise and the recognition of the work we have done at Benfica Campus throughout the year.", he revealed.

"An edition where we had 375 registrations, of which 59 girls, the largest edition ever in the women's Elite Training Camps, means that Benfica's youth football is growing and gaining more and more visibility. At the boys' level it was also the edition where we had more participants, which is very important given the events of the last few years, such as COVID. It's a very big evolution to be getting back to normal. It shows the Club's growth at an international level, closely allied to Benfica's results in the Youth League and in the men's and women's Champions Leagues", concluded Tiago Silva.

During their stay at the Elite Training Camps, the participants also had the opportunity to visit the Benfica Museum - Cosme Damião and Estádio da Luz. At the end of the program, prizes were awarded to the young athletes.