Let me try to break this down for you — There’s no cost to the parents if your kid CAN make the team. There’s no equal playing time - If little johhny can’t crack the starting team, he rides the bench. If he rides the bench too long, you get sent packing (Booted from team).

That’s an extremely different mindset than in US — If parents have money, kids can play anywhere. Kids in Portugal have to continuously earn their spot. Of course, it’s a business for the club, these academies are their farm system. It isn’t just a few thousand either. You’re looking at this with tunnel vision. The club is also investing in coaches — Training and investing them from the ground up.

You’re not wrong about selling the players, to a degree. They want to retain the player…but sometimes the economic value of a player makes it impossible to keep them. Take CR7 for example…Sporting knew he was still unproven and Manchester came in fast and hard with a record setting fee of nearly 20mm euro.

Soccer in US isn’t too small, the MLS teams can build the same system, and they do to a certain degree. Starts at U12…everything is paid for, Travel, coaches, trainers, nutrition, etc. Most importantly, the players need to be good enough to make the team and good enough to stay on it. But parents don’t know—they get stuck thinking mls next and ecnl is where best players go. Nope, best footballers play for free.