Flamengo's Saturday (3) kicked off with good news for its youth academy. Working together since the end of 2017, the club and Double Pass, a renowned Belgian consulting firm, officially announced the partnership at a press conference in the Rogerio Steinberg auditorium in Gávea. 

In attendance were President Eduardo Bandeira de Mello, the club's general director, Fred Luz, the presidential advisor for youth football, Luis Gustavo Nogueira, and Carlos Noval, the youth director. Double Pass was also represented by Head of Football Development Henk Mariman and CEO Hugo Schoukens, who participated via video call.

Opening the press conference, president Bandeira de Mello commented on the importance of working together with a company specializing in major projects like Double Pass. Next, Fred Luz, CEO of Flamengo, also emphasized the club's mission to make its youth teams increasingly stronger.

"Flamengo's main goal in this partnership is to continually develop players who consistently appear for national teams and stand out around the world. Our dream is to be world champions again with several players trained in our youth academy. Athletes trained here strongly identify with the club, so we need to make our philosophy clear to them and to those who work with us. We have done great work by the entire youth academy team; the growth and results they are delivering are visible. What we want is an even greater leap in quality for the excellent work already done. We want to develop not just athletes, but great professionals. We are increasing our investment in our youth academy across several sectors, and Double Pass is the icing on the cake and will take us to the next level," stated Luis Gustavo Nogueira.

For the company's CEO, Hugo Schoukens, the youth academy is an important part of establishing fan identification. "We believe that Flamengo fans want to identify with the players coming from the Academy. This team is the soul of Flamengo, and the board knows this," he said. He also explained the history of Double Pass, which works with major clubs in Germany, including the national team, as well as in England, Japan, Denmark, and Switzerland.

Concluding the explanation of the work carried out by the company with the club, Head of Football Development Henk Mariman explained the analysis of each stage of the process carried out by Double Pass, ranging from group work to individual work in all youth categories up to the professional level.

Check out the full press conference on FlaTV: