MILAN – England and Portugal have little in common, aside from a time zone and a shared love of exploration which saw the finest vessels of both nations set out to discover the world in the 15th century.
But while the Portuguese explorers drew the line at baptising the locals they found in faraway lands, the English took a different tack: they set about embedding their culture in these places. And come the 19th century, that culture included a sport by the name of football.
Interestingly, the city of Southampton played a vital role in bringing football to Brazil, a country that would come to define the sport in later years. The moustachioed Charles William Miller, born in Sao Paulo to a Scottish father and English mother, was sent by his parents to study in England and discovered football via St. Mary’s – the club that would later become Southampton FC.
Miller returned to Brazil in 1894. In his suitcase he brought two footballs, a pump, a pair of studded boots, a set of Hampshire FA rules and the belief that football – futebol – would soon change the world.
The sport has come a long way over the years, of course, and there was another new chapter written in the summer of 2016 as Portugal won the European Championship, their first major trophy. Celebrating the win – first under a starry Paris sky, then at a jam-packed Praca do Comercio back in Lisbon – were two players on the books at Southampton: Jose Fonte and Cedric Soares.
Looking out on the crowds of jubilant Portuguese, Fonte – a vital cog in Portugal’s Euro 2016 machine, having consolidated his position alongside Pepe in the centre of defence in recent years – and Soares might just gazed across the River Tagus, to Alcochete: the home of the Sporting Clube de Portugal youth academy.
It was here that Fonte and Soares cut their teeth as footballers. In fact, the academy helped to produce a substantial chunk of that European Championship-winning side: Cristiano Ronaldo, Rui Patricio, William Carvalho, Joao Moutinho, Adrien Silva, Nani, Ricardo Quaresma and Inter’s summer signing Joao Mario all came up through its ranks.
Soares arrived at the academy at the age of seven, accompanied by his brother and father, who had recently returned to the country after spending 20 years in Germany. The young Soares was actually born in Germany, but father was quick to ensure both his children were brought up with the white and green of Sporting in their hearts ("I have to go a long way back to find someone in my family who wasn’t a sportinguista," he once said).
Soares would spend the mornings at the German school in Lisbon, before heading to the Sporting academy in the afternoons. The coaches were so impressed that they fast-tracked him into the youth sides a year early.
Under the guidance of talent scout Aurelio Pereira, the man who discovered Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Figo, the youngsters – who come from all social classes of the capital, with especially high numbers of less fortunate kids – learn football the Sporting way.
Yet the club is not blessed with money, and places at the youth academy are limited. One of those affected was Jose Fonte, who had to cut his development short to try his luck in the world of senior football at some of the lesser known outposts of the Portuguese game.
The lessons Fonte learned at Sporting, coupled with the constant support of his father Artur (who himself was coached by Pereira once upon a time), helped the young defender to keep going. Eventually, the right door opened: Southampton.
Fonte joined Saints in January 2010, at a time when the south-coast club was playing in League One, England’s third tier. It was the perfect environment for Fonte and the team promptly embarked on a surge back to the only place a club like Southampton belongs – the Premier League.
Argentine manager Mauricio Pochettino took over in 2013 and within months Southampton were winning praise from the great and good of English football. Fonte had grown into one of the leaders in the dressing room and it was little wonder that Pochettino tried to sign him after he joined Tottenham Hotspur in 2014.
Yet Fonte stayed at St. Mary’s, helping his team qualify for the Europa League group stages after a seventh-place finish in the 2014/15 season. A few weeks later, Fonte was joined at Saints by a fellow Sporting Clube de Portugal youth product: Cedric Soares.
The two European champions are now ready to make more history, at San Siro on Thursday night.
Carlo Pizzigoni
