Santa Clara president talks about club's financial situation, return to I Liga and academy
Elected president of the C.D. Santa Clara Board in October of 2021, with 89.4% of the votes, Ricardo Pacheco inherited a very complicated situation as the popular Azorean soccer club from São Miguel was going through a serious financial crisis at the time.
The club’s directors and the SAD (the public limited sports company) were at odds - a situation that suggested dark days were coming.
When addressing the media right after the election results were announced, the new Santa Clara president warned that “if the club and the SAD have their backs turned to each other, it’s a bad sign, it’s a bad omen.” But he was optimistic and suggested that it is with the “diaspora that the club can grow.”
Santa Clara's financial recovery
Shortly after, a new majority shareholder - Bruno Vicintin - emerged in the SAD and promised “a winning project.”
But due to the dismembering of the roster caused by the sale of the best players, Santa Clara was relegated at the end of last season. That brought a fear that this setback would create additional conflict and result in changes to the project, as revenues fell while the debts remained.
But none of this scared Pacheco.
“Precisely the opposite happened,” he said. “In the summer of 2022, the new shareholder in the SAD, Engineer Bruno Vicintin, joined us and put an end to a previous period of turbulence, which, fortunately, has ended since the summer of 2022.”
Pacheco assured the current relations between the club and the SAD are “very good.”
“In fact, at the national level they are even referenced as an example,” he said. “We have a common project. And we are executing it.”
But the first year was not easy, he acknowledged.
“When the new shareholder structure came in for the 22-23 season, we had lost about 14 players. There were a lot of problems at Santa Clara SAD,” he said. “But, fortunately today, as a result of very intense, well-planned work, we are currently at the top of the second division. It’s not easy; it’s a very difficult league. This year is particularly difficult given the teams that are there. There are very high investments. All the teams have good coaches, good players.”
Santa Clara hopes to return to Portugal's First Division
After 20 weeks of play, Santa Clara leads the Segunda Liga (Second Division) with 43 points, with only one loss.
AVS is second, with 40 points, followed by Nacional da Madeira, with 37.
Since the top two teams are automatically promoted to the top flight of Portuguese soccer, the return to being with the big boys is well headed in the right direction.
Santa Clara to establish soccer academy
To try to avoid returning to the chaos of the recent past, Santa Clara is structuring itself, betting on their youth teams.
“We created our under-23 team, where we have been recruiting some good talents - both national and foreign - and are molding them,” Pacheco said. “We created our B team, which competed in the São Miguel championship, but is now moving to the Azores Series. The goal is to place this team in the Portuguese Championship or the Third League. We are also betting heavily on our under-19s, who will compete for access to Portugal’s First Division. Thus, it is a plan that was designed, very well thought out, well studied and fortunately it is beginning to bear its first fruits.”
Creating an Academy was the basis for the success of the top Portuguese clubs, as it not only sustains their first team but also generates essential revenues with the sales of their best talents.
However, the creation of an Academy has huge costs and most clubs in Portugal are not able to make this dream come true. At Santa Clara there is hope to turn the dream into reality.
“It is a project that is already underway, and it is a project that is only possible thanks to the new investor, engineer Bruno Vicintin, who brought us important financial muscle,” Pacheco revealed. “He made it possible for us to pay off numerous debts that were carrying over from year to year.”
He said the Academy has always been a big dream of Santa Clara.
“There were several people who tried to help and even partner with us, but the truth is that we are talking about a very large investment, and it is not easy,” he said. “One needs to find very strong partners. But the truth is that we have already purchased land. It will in the Rabo de Peixe area.”
He said that Santa Clara expects to move forward in March with the construction of several practice fields and support structures.
“No big team in the Portuguese league, or no team that wants to be truly big in the future, can succeed without a first team, without a B team, without an under-23 team, and also without investing in the U-19s, which is what we are doing,” he said. “Obviously, a training center is very important, especially in our home, on the island of São Miguel, where working conditions, this has to be said, are a serious problem that has existed for years. The working conditions for professional soccer are very poor.”
These shortcomings have always created problems for the team. When they were in the First Division, Santa Clara was “the team with the second worst working conditions.”
Pacheco explained that “any team in the mainland, Vizela, Rio Ave, Gil Vicente and so many others, have three, four natural grass fields where the first team can train. But, unfortunately, in the Azores, despite the support from the Regional Government, the working conditions are very bad. That’s one of the things we struggle with because honestly professional soccer at the top level is very complicated.”
Not having this infrastructure has hidden costs that negatively affect the progress and growth of the club.
“Santa Clara was starting a partnership with a big English club, one of the main clubs in the English Premier League,” Pacheco revealed as a way of documenting these struggles. “We brought in a player and the player, in the infamous Campo das Laranjeiras, where they usually get hurt, sustained an injury as others have done, because those grass fields leave a lot to be desired for those who want to train at a high level.”
So, the partnership ended right there.
“That’s why Santa Clara wants to move forward with its Training Center,” he added. “When it is completed, it will free up the fields where we have been training, and we will assuredly hire a properly qualified company that specializes in soccer pitches because that is an important detail.”
Thus, at the top of the pyramid is the first team, which will be fed by the under-23s and the under-19s. The idea, in the long term, will be to provide the youngsters in the Azores with the opportunity to succeed in professional soccer by bringing them through the various building stages. But completing this plan will still take some time.
“That was our big dream, to try to have only young Azoreans competing in the under-23 or under-19 teams, but quite honestly, we have to be realistic, that’s almost impossible,” he acknowledged. “Indeed, that is a dream. A group of youngsters from the Azores reaching the National First Division is a dream. I’ll give you an example: Lusitânia (from Terceira) achieved this feat, but the truth is they only have one Azorean player.”
He believes Santa Clara can have more.
“In our under-23 team, we have several youngsters practicing, some with talent,” he said. “I have no doubt that we now have the base to have more top-notch players coming through, but we have to be frank. If we look at Santa Clara’s first team, we have our Paulo Henrique there, who is a fantastic player. He is our captain. We have João Afonso, a young man who in the future will leave a mark even in national soccer. A 16-year-old goalkeeper who has been called up to the national team.”
“But we, in the management group, usually say when we are at training, that if every five years Santa Clara manages to create a young Azorean who can be part of the first team, I don't say be a starter on the first team, but just to be part of the first team, the youth program will deserve to be congratulated. But it's not easy, getting to the first team is very difficult, the competition is very tough,” he added.
To illustrate these struggles, Pacheco pointed out that “the youth teams from São Miguel usually go to the mainland to play and normally lose 10, 12 or 14-0, or 14-1, because their level is different.”
“Have one make it to the first team? That is what we want,” he said. “Because bringing in a young player from Brazil, or the United States, from England or France to the Azores, entails high costs, with the stay, the adjustments…it is obvious that for us the ideal would be for our team to be made up only of residents… but that is a utopia.”
In any case, Santa Clara is a club in obvious financial recovery.
After overcoming “very big, serious, very serious financial problems,” he said that Santa Clara is a balanced team.
“A team that is up to date, especially since the summer of 2022 until now,” he stressed.
He noted this recovery was based on “two key words that the current board and the SAD have adopted, the word union and the word sustainability.”
“We’re investing, but we’re doing it in a way that doesn’t mortgage the future,” he assured.
He said the senior team “was built very well.”
“Our coach, Vasco Matos, is a young coach, very ambitious, very hardworking,” he pointed out. “We have a team of friends, which is important in modern soccer, because sometimes when there are three or four great players who don’t get along with each other, it’s a big mess. Fortunately, we also corrected that aspect and honestly it will be game by game. It will be very difficult until the end of the season, but our main goal is to return to the top flight in Portuguese soccer.”
Santa Clara motivated to eliminate Futebol Clube do Porto
On Wednesday, Santa Clara hosted powerful Futebol Clube do Porto in a quarter-final match of the Portuguese Cup. But the scoreless game was stopped in the 27th minute due to poor ground conditions, caused by strong winds and the persistent rain that fell all day.
The Portuguese Football Federation said in a statement that the game will be concluded on Feb. 27, 28 or 29. Pacheco believes that Santa can surprise the dragons and make history on that day.
“If we get through this tie, it will be the first time in history that Santa Clara will reach the semi-finals of the Portuguese Cup,” said the Santa Clara president. “Two years ago, we beat FC Porto 3-1 in the League Cup, we also beat Sporting, Benfica. Santa Clara has already beaten the big boys. It’s not easy, we know. We’re dealing with three national soccer powerhouses, but when the game starts anything can happen. One thing the Azoreans and Santa Clara fans can be sure of, our players will give their best.”
After suggesting that it will be a game “of David against Goliath” because “maybe one or two players from Futebol Clube do Porto throughout the season cost more than the entire budget of the entire Santa Clara team,” Pacheco did not hide his confidence.
“Our team so far has only conceded 10 or 11 goals,” he said. “We have a cohesive team... we’ve only lost once this year. We might have luck on our side in this game, I really believe in our players.”
The importance of fans in the diaspora
Pacheco also addressed the club’s fans spread throughout the diaspora, asking them for support.
“The diaspora for us is a priority because I believe that for Santa Clara to grow, it has to grow through the diaspora, where most of our brothers are. So, I have a very special affection for the diaspora,” he said. “Many already help us because I have feedback. There are always a lot of Azorean emigrants watching our games... the best way to help us, quite honestly, is to support us, going to social media, and clicking on ‘like.’ Support the team, not only when they win, that’s important. The more people that use the club’s, the SAD’ social media outlets, and pull for us, the bigger the club will be.”
“When Santa Clara plays, the Azores play. And when Santa Clara wins a big game, it is with great joy that I see the satisfaction the Azorean people feel knowing they can also beat the big boys,” he added. “Go to our social media, come to the Azores, come see Santa Clara, and it will be with great joy that we will welcome you.”
This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Santa Clara president talks about financial situation, goals and projects
