Renato Sanches stood on stage in Lisbon as a mass of red and green swayed and pulsed before him. Some climbed onto vans or hung from lampposts as he took the microphone and led the singing; “Champions, champions, we are champions.”
Portugal had beaten France in Paris the day before to secure the Euro 2016 title, a first major trophy in the nation’s history. Sanches, just 18, had been central to the campaign and was rewarded not only with a winner’s medal but Uefa’s prize for young player of the tournament. In just eight months, he had gone from unknown Benfica B team player to the brightest talent in European football.
In the days that followed those celebrations, the midfielder would complete a €35m (£32.3m) move from Benfica to Bayern Munich. It was almost universally expected that he would kick on again, taking the Bundesliga in his stride just like he had with everything that came before.
Yet in the intervening four years, Sanches had not hit the expected heights. Opportunities were limited over his two full seasons at Bayern, which were split down the middle by a testing year on loan at Swansea. Now at Lille in France, Sanches will face Celtic in the Europa League on Thursday evening as he looks to take the next step towards reviving a stuttering career.
João Tralhão – one of the coaches who know Sanches best, having worked with him for three years in Benfica’s youth teams – tells i that Sanches was thrown off course by “a very abrupt culture change” in Germany.
“He is a boy from Lisbon,” Tralhão continues, “who had always had his family, friends, the club. All those elements gave him support. When he went to Germany, everything changed: a country with a different culture, a club with a different culture. I think there was a certain intolerance, a natural intolerance, because we’re talking about Bayern Munich. Renato’s adaptation period was a little longer than expected.”
Sanches would go on to win the Golden Boy award – given to the best under-21 player in Europe – in October 2016, but by then his opportunities had already become limited. In his first season at Bayern, he played just 900 minutes of football.
For the following campaign he was loaned to Swansea with the intention of playing regularly and regaining a place in the Portugal squad before the World Cup. Instead he endured a season beset by hamstring injuries that ended in relegation from the Premier League. In Tralhão’s words, “the context was not one that helped him recover”.
Sanches’ time in Wales was best summed up by a moment half an hour into a game at Stamford Bridge, when he mistook a red patch on an advertising hoarding for the red Swansea away kit of a teammate and passed the ball straight out of play. He was withdrawn at half-time by Swans manager Paul Clement as an act of mercy, but his confidence was shot and the reaction on social media was typically cruel.
Another season at Bayern followed, but playing time was again hard to come by. By early 2019, he had had enough. “I’m not happy here, I work a lot, but I’m not allowed to play,” Sanches told kicker in April that year. “I want to play more, maybe at a different club.”
His chance to do so came that summer when Lille’s highly regarded Portuguese sporting director Luis Campos decided to pay Bayern €25m for his compatriot’s services. And despite a rocky first few weeks of last season, Sanches has since gone some way to rediscovering the self-belief that launched him to stardom in 2016.
Campos, who has built a reputation for buying low and selling high – players like Nicolas Pepé and Victor Osimhen have brought Lille hundreds of millions of Euros in profit – predicted in February that Sanches’ market value would “double or triple” in the coming years.
Tralhão, who left Benfica to become Thierry Henry’s assistant manager at Monaco in 2018, says, “Luis Campos is one of the best as a sporting director. Who better than him to say? Lille is a club with an excellent structure and that is allowing [Sanches] to get back to playing with joy and focus.”
Earlier this month, Sanches, now 23, put in a typically all-action performance and scored his side’s second as Lille beat Strasbourg 3-0. Owing to that fine form, he has forced his way back into the Portugal squad, playing in all three of his country’s October internationals.
“I believe there could be nothing better for him than these obstacles, than this period of difficulties,” Tralhão says, “I always had the conviction that he would make the most of this less good period in his career to become the player he was meant to be.
“I have real affection for him. He is a boy with extraordinary character, very strong, with leadership qualities far above average. He doesn’t only have that physical force, that force in the game; emotionally and mentally he is really strong. And he has been since he was 10.
“We can see that now at Lille and with the national team, where he is growing again. He’s getting back to normal, but he’ll always remember how it didn’t go well at Bayern or Swansea, and that will give him an extra strength to get to the next level. Soon he’ll be back at the top level of European football.”
According to Lille’s president and owner Gerard Lopez, the club has already received offers of over €70m for Sanches. But, Lopez told L’Equipe, “He won’t go. Our sporting project takes precedence.”
For Lille, the next step in that sporting project is the game against Celtic in northern France on Thursday night. And for Portugal’s lost Golden Boy, this Europa League campaign could prove the perfect opportunity to regain a little more of his shine.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/34Af544
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