So why aren't we in the top ranks of the most developed countries?

What would we be like if we copied the methods that have made Portuguese football an exemplary case worldwide?

How did we manage to generate so much talent and put it into the best teams in the world?

Today, Portugal is one of the biggest exporters of talent, both players and coaches.

Portugal is in all European and World competitions at all levels.

In 2025, Portugal had three players in the top 20, one of whom was third.

Portugal has three Ballon d'Or winners - Eusébio, Figo and Ronaldo.

How did we get here in a country of 10 million inhabitants?

Through management!

Just as we have heroes who serve as role models, in football we start with idols like the 5Violinos at Sporting, Eusébio at Benfica and Matateu at Belenenses.

In these cases, we're talking about players from the 40s to the late 60s.

We won two European Cups and a Cup Winners' Cup.

When the main figures stopped playing, we went more than three decades without winning any trophies again.

What changed from the 90s onwards?

There was a young coach called Carlos Queirós who brought management and method.

From then on, a school was set up, results began to appear, and the teams stopped being one plus ten and became ten plus one.

The kids started to want to emulate the players, not just the out-of-sorts, and that made, and makes, all the difference. They began to believe that they could become players without having to be aliens.

The clubs created structures.

The seeds were sown.

Today, we have thousands of children from the age of 4 to 15 playing football all over the country. Will they all reach the top? No, but they will all have a different preparation for life.

The spirit of camaraderie, interdependence, resilience and the power to fight back are weapons that training gives them like no other school.

For the 97 per cent who will never have professional practice in their future, these skills will help them so much in life.

Today, Portugal has a cutting-edge industry called football. It has it because it combines the quantity of raw materials with management and methods. Method in the selection of the most capable players, method in the definition of training adapted to each level, method in demand and its graduation, method in the choice of trainers.

Demand! Yes, demand, contrary to what many people think, children and young people are eager to demand.

Management! None of this would be possible without management.

Imagine the potential of this country the day we transpose the reality of football training to maths, theatre, literature, etc....

The secret is to attract children, as in the case of football.

It involves dignifying the teaching profession, it involves managing people better.

It involves having the ability to structure a thought, to develop strategies and to have the humility to ask for what the wise men before us asked for before they acted:

"Always inspire me with what I should think.

"What I should say. How I should say it.

#What I should keep quiet. How I should act. What I should do. Give me the insight to understand. Capacity to retain, method and faculty to learn. Subtlety to interpret. Grace and effectiveness to communicate. Give me clarity when I begin. Direction when I progress and perfection when I finish".

Without quantity we will never have quality.

Without enthusiasm we will never succeed.

Without strategy, planning, method and management we will never be a country of the future.

As a Portuguese, I know we will be!

Long live Portugal!