The "source bonanza" of foreign aid! Brazilian sports came to China for training to help Taishan B team

Reporter Chen Yong reports On the afternoon of December 31, the first team of Brazilian sports flew to Guangzhou. On January 2, the A3 League team of Sao Paulo State, Brazil, which is owned by Shandong Taishan Football Club, officially began training. On the 4th and 5th, Brazil Sports and Shandong Taishan B team played two warm-up matches, and in the first game on the 4th, Brazil Sports won 6-0. In the second match on the 5th, Sporting Brasil won 3-2. According to the plan, Brazilian sports will also play warm-up matches with teams such as Shenzhen Youth, Qingdao Manatee and Guangdong Guangzhou Leopards, and will practice with Shandong Taishan B team during the period.

In addition to the hotly discussed "direct promotion of foreign aid by the source club", Brazilian sports also undertook the tasks of helping Taishan youth training and building a Brazilian platform for Chinese teenagers to stay abroad. Of course, they also have the task of preparing for the 2025 season of the A3 League.

Domestic teams and fans have a certain understanding of the Brazilian Sports Base (formerly known as Brazil DB) because it is a base built by Shandong Taishan Football Club in Brazil, but most of them do not know the strength of the Brazilian Sports team.

The reason why Brazilian sports were selected by Shandong Taishan is because of their excellent youth training system. In the 2024 season, for example, Sporting Brazil U20 reached the last 8 of the Paulista U20 League, the U17 team finished 11th in the Paulista U17 League, and the U15 team finished 5th in the Paulista U15 League.

The Paulista Youth League, also known as the São Paulo State Youth League, is the highest level youth league in Brazil, with the participation of teams from the São Paulo State of the fourth division of the Brazilian National League and the echelon of the teams of the São Paulo State Division III, with 84 participating clubs in 2024, divided into 7 age groups such as U20, U17, U15 to U11. Sporting Brazil competed in three age groups, the Under-15s, Under-17s and Under-20s, with one team reaching the round of 16 and two teams reaching the last eight, which is a testament to the quality of its youth training.

Brazilian sports have produced many international stars. According to the German Transfer Market, six players in the 2024/2025 UEFA Champions League have come from the youth academy of Brazilian sports clubs, which is the club with the most players in the UEFA Champions League among the major youth systems in South America. They are Bremer (Juventus, €60 million), Edson (Atalanta, €50 million), Kevin (Shakhtar Donetsk, €12 million), Diego (Aston Villa, €11 million), Mauro (PSV Eindhoven, €7 million), Ismaily (Lille, 35, €1.5 million). In addition, Madruga, winner of the Puskas Prize for the 2023 season, is also trained by Brazilian sports. In terms of domestic players, Chen Pu, Duan Liuyu and Fang Hao have all previously represented Sporting Brazil in the A3 League.

The Brazilian Sporting first team that came to China for training is made up of two players, half of which are from the Sporting Brazil U20 team, the main players of the Under-20 team, and the Brazilian Sporting Under-20 team has performed very well in the past two years. The other half are players over the age of 20.

This time, Brazilian sports came to China for training, and the hot topic was that they wanted to sell foreign aid, considering the high requirements of the Chinese Super League clubs, Brazilian sports players may be more suitable for the Chinese league. The excellent results of the 2024 season for the first team and the Under-20 team also prove that their players can compete in the Central League. Judging from the performance of Brazilian Sports and Shandong Taishan B team, there are several excellent players in the team who meet the requirements of the strong teams in the Central League, and almost all the players in their main squad can adapt to the middle and lower reaches of the Central League. You know, there is still a time difference between Brazilian sports players in these two games.

Mateus, who currently plays for Kashiwa Suns and is about to join Urawa Red Diamonds, made his debut at Sporting Brasil, playing for Sporting Brasil's U20 team, then joining Flamengo, and since 2019, he has played for Kashiwa Suns.

More importantly, Sporting Brazil, as Brazil's "source club", can avoid foreign aid premiums, which may be very attractive to Chinese Super League clubs. In addition, Brazilian sports players are generally young and have more room to grow in the future.

As a youth-focused club, Sporting Brazil has always been a supporter of player mobility, as evidenced by the large number of Brazilian Sporting players in the Europa League. In fact, the players of Sporting Brazil's first team will also play on loan at the end of the season for about three months in the first half of the year, with clubs in the second division, second division and second division.

Of course, this is only one of the purposes for Brazilian sports to come to China for training. Another important task of them is to help the Taishan B team, through joint training and warm-up matches, so that the Taishan B team can obtain high-quality international confrontation games, this Taishan B team actually undertook the task of competing in the U20 group of this year's National Games.

Not only the Taishan B team, but other teams that have warmed up with Brazilian sports will also benefit a lot, because this team offers a completely different intensity and fast pace from domestic teams, and has very good training value. A simple example, at the beginning of the 2024 season, Yunnan Yukun said after warming up with Taishan B team that this was the biggest warm-up game for Yunnan Yukun, because the fast pace of Taishan B team brought great exercise value.

In the development plan of Brazilian sports, Brazilian sports is a platform for Shandong Taishan Football Club, Luneng Football School and Brazilian football exchanges, before the Taishan echelon has been to Brazil for many times to train, and many Taishan players have played in the U20 league and A3 league. In addition, Brazilian Sports will provide an overseas platform for Brazilian training and overseas study abroad for all domestic youth national teams, professional clubs and echelons, including other youth training institutions and teams, with a completely open attitude. On October 4, 2023, Sporting Brazil hosted the warm-up matches of the Brazilian U17 national team and the United States U17 national team.