“Militao has no idea about tactics”

Sergio ConceicaoPorto’s coach from 2017 until last summer, earned a reputation for knowing how to straighten out the talent of promising players who arrived at the Portuguese team with a heavy hand. It happened to the midfielder Nico Gonzalez He arrived from Barça in the summer of 2023 and had minutes until January 2024, when he took the direction his coach wanted and became a permanent fixture. But there are more examples and one, very important, was explained this Thursday at the Casina Poste in Rome on the occasion of the presentation of the 25 finalists for the Golden Boy, with the Barça player Lamine Yamal as a favorite without discussion.

Invited as a youth trainer, he was asked in the talk of the event, as the main guest, about the evolution of the Madrid center back. Eder Militao (26 years old), who fell into his hands in the 2018-19 season when he was only 19 years old, who recently arrived from Brazil. And his explanation was not wasted.

He arrived at Porto from Cruzeiro for just 7 million euros and was sold to Real Madrid for 50 after just one season, with 47 games played and 5 goals scored. “That’s because the president of Porto knows how to sell,” the coach, now without a team, commented ironically, as if the job of coaches was unimportant. And he built it with hair and signs.

“military He didn’t have the slightest idea of ​​tactics when he arrived, technically he was very strong and physically he was a monster, but he had no idea of ​​tactics, to be honest, he didn’t know what to do on or off the field. . We had to do specific work to make it a business after a year. We show him the videos and then we work in the field. The spaces, the moment to be aggressive, the zone, the pressure… When he understood himself as an intelligent player, he took the leap in quality,” he explained.

And he revealed some advice he gave him: “If I dance samba and eat picanha at the weekend, I won’t be able to play for Real Madrid. And he’s been there for six years!”