Experience and Benfiquista DNA with an eye to the future!

BTV REPORT

The leadership of the transition teams for Sport Lisboa e Benfica's professional football in 2023/24 will be taken by three well-known faces of Benfica's youth football. Nélson Veríssimo, Paulo Lopes and Luís Araújo share a profile of wide experience in the development of young players in the Club, as well as a deep knowledge of the contexts they will embrace in the new season.

HOMECOMING

Nélson Veríssimo is returning to Sport Lisboa e Benfica to take over as head coach of the B team, a project he knows better than anyone. It was in this space that he made his debut as head coach in 2020/21 and 2021/22, after being part of all the coaching staff of this category between 2012/13 and 2018/19, as an assistant coach.

Veríssimo performed duties as head coach of SL Benfica's First Team in two periods, in the 2019/20 and 2021/22 seasons, revealing competence at the elite level and showing a strong sense of commitment to the Club. In 2022/23, he led GD Estoril Praia in the Portuguese top flight. 

Nélson Veríssimo now has a new chapter of a long connection to Sport Lisboa e Benfica, which began in his formative years as a player, and is now preparing to complete his 19th season with an eagle on his chest.

A NEW CHALLENGE

Paulo Lopes is preparing for a new challenge at Sport Lisboa e Benfica as head coach of the Under-23 team, after five seasons as goalkeeper coach and assistant coach of the A, B and Under-23 teams.

The former Benfica goalkeeper joined the technical structure of youth football in 2018/19, after finishing his career as a footballer, when he took on the role of goalkeeping coach in the Under-23 team, participating in the start of the project in Sport Lisboa e Benfica and at the national level. After a stint with the First Team in 2020/21, he returned to the U-23 context in 2021/22 as an assistant coach.

In 2022, Paulo Lopes was involved in the conquests of the UEFA Youth League and U-20 Intercontinental, being the European U-19 competition one of the challenges he will face in 2023/24.

IN THE FIRST STAGE OF THE TRANSITION TO PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL 

Luís Araújo is one of the main faces of the success that Sport Lisboa e Benfica's youth football has achieved in this century and will continue his path at the Club at the helm of the Under-19s, a category he led from 2019 to 2022 and for which he won the national title in the 2021/22 season.

The manager join the Club in the year Benfica Campus was born (2006), monitoring all the project's growth over the years.

Over 17 years, Luís Araújo has accumulated an enviable degree of experience in the work of developing young players, in several age groups, also winning the U15, U17 and U19 national titles.

For 2023/24, the coach will be in charge of the Under-19s, in what is the first stage of the transition to professional football.