THE 2nd PSG ACADEMY CUP BRAZIL KICKS OFF IN SAO PAULO

From 7 to 12 January 2020, over 600 youngsters aged between 7 and 13 years of age will take part in the second Paris Saint-Germain Academy Cup Brazil. Following last year’s successful inaugural competition in Rio de Janeiro, this year’s tournament will be held at the famous Allianz Parque in Sao Paulo.

The 2019 competition was quite an event, with the children serving up some quality football in Rio and enjoying visits to the Corcovado Mountain and Brazil’s Football Museum before rounding off the tournament in style with the finals at the legendary Maracanã Stadium.

This major competition brought together more youngsters than any other in the Paris Saint-Germain football academy network in the 2019/20 season. It followed another year of growth for the Paris Saint-Germain Academy in Brazil, with a new centre opening in Natal, in the north of the country, in 2019. The Paris Saint-Germain Academy now runs 15 centres in 11 cities across Brazil (Rio, Sao Paulo, Recife, Salvador, Guarulhos, Sumare Vitoria, Brasilia, Porto Alegre, Natal and Vale dos Sinos). Attended by 3,381 children, Brazil’s contingent of Paris Saint-Germain academies is the second-largest in the world behind France. A further four centres will open in the country in 2020, in the cities of Salvador, Florianopolis, Teresina and Fortaleza.

“We are immensely proud of the rapid development our football academies are enjoying in Brazil,” said Nadia Benmokhtar, the head of the Paris Saint-Germain Academy programme. “The club’s profile, the historic links between Paris Saint-Germain and Brazil, and the wonderful work carried out by our local partners have allowed us to achieve these heights. Attracting nearly 4,000 players each season, our Academy has become the biggest club in Brazil and the Paris Saint-Germain Academy Cup Brazil the most shining example of that growth. It is great to see more than 600 players wearing our colours in this magnificent stadium and the family photo is superb.”

All the teams taking part in the second Paris Saint-Germain Academy Cup Brazil arrived in Sao Paulo on 7 January, in preparation for the competition. After collecting their kit at their respective training camps, the children will make their way to the Espaço Itau de Cinema at Bourbon Shopping Sao Paulo to watch the film The Champion, which will be followed by a debate on football. They will then get down to playing, with four days of intense competition at the Allianz Parque, the home ground of Brazilian Serie A club Palmeiras. The pool phases run from 8 to 10 January, with the finals taking on 11 January.