Braga, Portugal - Some years in the future - An hour after the final whistle has blown, the sun is setting and the players are posing for photos and signing autographs with the fans that have stayed behind to capture this piece of history.
These are common sights, sounds and feelings for teams in the top division who have European ambitions but for Famalicão fans they still have to pinch themselves, especially those who remember when the club fell to the fifth-tier, the Braga Football Association District League, in 2008-09.
Famalicão were only promoted back to the Portuguese top flight in 2019 but their plan for steady progression began a couple of years earlier when the Quantum Pacific Group purchased 51% of the club in 2018 led by Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer. The immediate plan of getting back to the top tier was accomplished in 2019 and that’s when the real planning began to build their stature gradually as Ofer increased the group’s ownership to 85% whilst holding a 33% stake in Atletico Madrid.
Famalicão is owned by Israeli businessman Idan Ofer
The big three teams in Portugal; Sporting, Benfica & Porto have at times mixed their strategies:
Sometimes it’s buying from South America, profiting from their sales, rinse and repeat
Sometimes it’s taking advantage of their fantastic academy prospects
Sometimes they just like to waste money on average players and rack up debts until the next wonderkid can be sold to clear the decks.
With that being said, all three teams have a HUGE following, they have great facilities and the pick of the local talent so any chance of breaking this triopoly would have had to take serious planning and a persistent mindset.
Famalicão had to be different, the Estadio Municipal 22 de Junho stadium held less supporters (5,307) than one tier of the Estadio da Luz (8,356) and with local rivals Braga a regular European competitor the management team had to think of plan to be the best of the rest with a view of upsetting the authority when the time comes. Their recruitment had to be clever, it started with taking advantage of the inevitable wastage from the top clubs, then it moved to finding value in all markets whilst always having plans for when the richer clubs invariably came looking for players and using that income to reinvest in all areas of the football club.
That reinvestment now boasts a portfolio that includes a brand new stadium, a modern training facility and a backroom team that are the envy of clubs around the globe and whilst the Quantum Pacific Group have provided the financial management it’s been the managerial guidance of Fernando Couto that pulled all the pieces of the puzzle together to get the club to where it is today but back in 2023 when Idan Ofer approached the former captain of Portugal to take the reigns at the club it was the potential of the project that excited him , rather than the pull of being a former player. Speaking after the final game of the season Couto said that he was proud of where the club has come from but excited for where they can still go.
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Next: We’ll explain how we got there in FM24.
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You can hear more about this save on next week’s 5 Star Potential Podcast & you can keep up to date via @FridayNightFM’s twitter.