What makes football in Sao Paulo special? It is a question that the city’s great football clubs have been asking themselves almost as much as the European scouts who visit. By embracing the past, the aim to ensure that they keep creating talent in the future.
For context, Sao Paulo and nearby Santos have produced the most World Cup winners of any teams in Brazil, while Sao Paulo and rivals Palmeiras boast the distinction of being the only two teams to have provided a player in each of Brazil’s five World Cup winning squads.
In the Brazil squad for this tournament, goalkeeper Ederson and the star defensive duo of Gabriel and Marquinhos are all Sao Paulo natives. Meanwhile, Neymar, Casemiro, Alex Sandro and Gabriel Martinelli were also born in the greater Sao Paulo area.
Others have been drawn to the city in search of greater opportunities. Endrick, for example, the Real Madrid forward, was born in Brasilia but moved to Sao Paulo as a boy. Palmeiras provided his father Douglas with work to help facilitate his move from Goias.
And those are just the Brazil internationals. Sao Paulo’s own Cacau, a Bundesliga winner with Stuttgart, scored for Germany at the 2010 World Cup having qualified through residency. “You have a lot of opportunity in Sao Paulo,” Cacau tells Sky Sports.
“In Sao Paulo you have a lot of clubs. This is the economic centre of Brazil. And you have of course a poor side but also a very rich side.” That blend of sheer numbers combined with the facilities and systems to develop talent might just be Sao Paulo’s secret sauce.
Speaking to Cafu, a two-time Copa Libertadores winner with Sao Paulo and the man who last lifted the World Cup for Brazil in 2002, he believes that this emphasis on youth development could be the key to it all. “Maybe that’s the answer,” he tells Sky Sports.
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Legendary footballer Cafu played the last time Brazil took on Scotland at a World Cup
“Maybe it is because Sao Paulo comes from a tradition that gives preference to the youth categories.” But given the vast size of Sao Paulo – the population of the state is approximately 46 million – there is an element of this just being a numbers game.
Juninho, the Middlesbrough legend, was born in Sao Paulo before becoming a superstar in Europe and a World Cup winner with Brazil. He puts the scale of the place into context. “Sao Paulo is much bigger than many other countries,” he tells Sky Sports.
“For people to understand, it is the number of people who live in Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo has a federation that would be the equivalent of the FA in England.” And crucially, they know what they are doing. “It is very well managed and very competent,” adds Juninho.
“We have Reinaldo, the president, and we have Mauro Silva, an idol of Spanish football in his time with Deportivo La Coruna [and a World Cup winner with Brazil in 1994]. He has been the vice-president for many years. They have been doing a fantastic job.
“The clubs in Sao Paulo, not only at the top level, but also in the second and third division, they have good structures and train good players. So, Sao Paulo as a region has the conditions for Sao Paulo’s football to be the best in the country in terms of talent.
Juninho explains what it is that helps Sao Paulo produce so many players
“That is why so many athletes, players from the north and northeast want to come to Sao Paulo because of the structure and visibility. It is a region that trains a lot of players because of the federation’s and clubs’ competence. I think it is just more professional.
“Everything, from the beginning of their training until the player becomes a professional, the whole structure, that is what makes the state so attractive to players. It is hard for them to find that structure in other states. Of course it does exist, but it is a mix.”
The cliché of the Brazilian cultural melting pot is there in microcosm in Sao Paulo’s football system. The players from the city are bolstered by the boys and girls who travel from the nation’s rural areas and smaller towns to the north in search of their fortune.
“Players from the north and northeast come with the essence of Brazilian football. We can see the difference in them. They are more reverent, more responsible in a good way and we need that. So, they come to São Paulo and we give them a good treatment.”
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European clubs are eager to harness what makes Sao Paulo unique. Cacau remains an ambassador for Stuttgart and recently accompanied players from the club’s academy on a trip to his old neighbourhood. It was an education for them – and special for him.
“As a Brazilian, it was amazing. Because it was the club of my heart and my hometown. To see the Stuttgart players and the kids in Brazil together. From a sporting perspective, it was a really good experience for the players because the Brazilians play another style.
“So, that was a very good experience for them. But for me the great moment was outside the pitch. To see around Sao Paulo, to see the social projects, to see favelas. This experience I think will be with them for a long time, a big experience for the guys.”
This idea that modern football with its all too pristine academies has lost something that made players great is persuasive, particularly in Brazil where there is a lament that the five-time champions of the world might not be what they were on the global stage.
There is a romance to those dirt pitches on which skills were honed. So much so that Palmeiras opted to reintroduce them at their academy, explaining that they wanted their players to go back to their street football origins, to embrace dribbling over passing.
There is evidence to suggest that it has worked. Estevao is only missing out on this World Cup through injury, the Palmeiras graduate now at Chelsea having joined his former club teammate Endrick in making his senior Brazil debut at the age of just 17.
View of Palmeiras’ dirt field where their youngsters play to develop creativity
Many clubs would like to put this Sao Paulo swagger back into their players. Arsenal took it further by hosting an eight-team tournament in the city, offering a trip to London for the winners to showcase their talent in conjunction with the Dirt is Good campaign.
As well as Gabriel and Martinelli, Arsenal striker Gabriel Jesus is also from Sao Paulo. There were emotional scenes when the trio watched the video of the Varzenal Cup – a play on the famous grassroots game of varzea that is played on makeshift community pitches.
Arsenal legends Ian Wright and Gilberto Silva also visited Sao Paulo in February to see these games in action and were struck by the fact that the Brazilian players were much better at dealing with the ball when the bounce was unpredictable. They were used to it.
Finding that balance between providing the facilities to develop talent while retaining the elements that helped create it in the first place is tricky. But given its traditions and culture, its resources both human and financial, Sao Paulo will surely remain a football hotbed.
