I’m delighted to speak with sport psychologist at Benfica Football Club, Dr Pedro L Almeida in this episode. Pedro has been a sport psychologist at Benfica FC for coming up to 25 years. During this time he has accumulated a wealth of experience working with players of all ages from youth team players through to some of the best players in the world. Pedro is also Assistant Professor at Instituto Universitário in Lisbon.

We speak about the holistic approach to player development that Benfica takes; the importance of helping players have a structure to their thinking; helping players with career transitioning; helping players manage the fame that comes with a first-team contract; having a support team around players from a young age, not just at first team level; and the successful traits of Portuguese managers.