Jinyuan Football vs Youth Training Black Store: Who is better?

In the football world, there are always people who argue about which is more reliable, "spending money" or "raising people". Today, let’s take the “comparison group” of Chelsea and Benfica and talk about it in a broken way - the bubble of gold-yuan football and the abacus of youth training black stores. Who is the club’s life-sustaining golden elixir?

How many trophys can Chelsea’s banknotes burn?

Chelsea in the Abu era was simply the "Wolf of Wall Street" in the football world. Since 2003, the London team has used money to open the door to the Champions League championship, but at the cost of sky-high bills in the transfer market. The problem is that this strategy is very similar to stock trading to chase ups and downs: buy Kepa for 150 million euros, and sign Havertz for 80 million euros... The more ruthless the money is spent, the more obvious the mentality of "short-term worker" in the locker room. Although the youth training players in the team are worth 325 million euros, most of them are defective products left by forced to "scrape the lottery" back then. To put it bluntly, Jinyuan football is like fast food, full, but it is nutritionally balanced? It does not exist.

Benfica's "Star Factory" assembly line

Look at Benfica again, they are playing "futures trading". Felix and Dias, the top students in their own youth training, combined with potential stocks such as Nunes and Enzo, bought from low prices in South America, will be ten times more expensive after two years of processing. Their scouting system is comparable to "human big data". It specializes in selecting semi-finished products from other people's youth training camps and stuffs them into their own "star oven" to bake. Currently, 104 youth training players are scattered in Europe, with a total value of 670 million euros, which is not the 150 million euros in stock left in the team. This model is like opening a chain milk tea shop: the raw materials are cheap, the formula is exclusive, and the branches are open all over the world and are still making sure to make a profit.

Short-term pleasure vs long-term hematopoiesis

Chelsea's dilemma is that money can buy stars, but it cannot buy the system. After Abu left, the team was like a nouveau riche who lost his credit card, and even the qualification for the Champions League became a luxury. In contrast, Benfica earns transfer fees earned by selling people every year, and can also feed back to youth training and poaching systems, forming a closed loop. For example: Enzo sold 120 million euros to Chelsea, enough for Benfica to raise five more "new Enzos".

Football is not a zero-sum game

Of course, Chelsea's money burning is not useless - the two Champions League trophys are real hard currency. But Benfica proved one thing: the ultimate competitiveness of football clubs is not the bank account balance, but the assembly line that can continuously output talents. Just like planting trees, Chelsea likes to buy a century-old banyan tree directly at the door, while Benfica silently planted saplings all over the mountains. Ten years later, whose forests are more lush? The answer has long been written in the Portuguese account book.