In world football, there aren't many academys that have produced as many players as Sporting de Portugal (Sporting Lisbon's real name is Sporting de Portugal) that has produced a large group of players who have glittered the history of football. When it comes to star-making ability, Sporting is definitely one of the best teams in Europe.

In the 2016 European Championship in France, Portugal defeated the host French team in extra time to win the European Championship for the first time in history, and Sporting de Portugal Football Club was the biggest contributor, because in this final, 10 of the 14 players played by the Portuguese team, the football academy of Sporting Portugal contributed 10 people.

Three teams have qualified for the Champions League for two consecutive years, won the new European Cup, and have four Ballon d'Or winners...... The seemingly strong Portuguese football is in crisis.

The competitiveness of the domestic league is declining, the gap between the rich and the poor between the top three and other teams in Portugal is widening, the income distribution is extremely unfair, the development of youth training that has been proud of in recent years is hardly excellent, the youth newcomers are difficult to be reused in the local giants, and some talented players who have gone abroad have failed to realize their talents, resulting in the Portuguese team in many positions and few available talents.

The absence of a Portuguese face from the 25-man shortlist for the 2017 European Golden Boy award just announced by Torino Sport newspaper reflects the reality of Portuguese football: not the European Cup winners, not the Ballon d'Or, but endless problems and troubles.

But for Tan Xibi, as long as it does not affect his career as a professional player, he will not pay attention to these things in the outside world at all.

Because he is very busy, he practices the basics day after day and participates in various competitions of the youth team. Over the past year, after receiving professional football training, Tan Xibi's ability has risen faster than the rockets, and coupled with his ball quotient beyond his peers, he has quickly made a name for himself among the younger generation in Portugal.

In the capital Lisbon, as long as the "sigh" from China is mentioned (because of the word bi in the name), in addition to the fans of the Portuguese sports team, even the fans of the rival derby rivals Benfica and another bitter rival, Porto, also give a thumbs up.

It is said that this Chinese genius who was born in wild football and was a "late bloomer" was discovered by the discerning eye of Agostiño Oliveira, the godfather of the Portuguese academy. The veteran of Portuguese football's most important role even said that Tan Xibi will be the third Portuguese footballer to produce the Mr. Ballon d'Or after Luis Figo and Cristiano Ronaldo.

It is said that the president of the Portuguese Football Federation, Fernando Gómez, personally came forward to invite Tan Xibi to join the Portuguese nationality but was politely refused.

It is said that Benfica and Porto spared no expense to invite Tan Xibi to join, but it did not happen.

It is said that many European giants have sent scouts to follow Tan Xibi's performance for a long time.

Reputedly......

Well, since Tan Xibi was recommended by Oliveira to the youth training base of the Portuguese sports club, it has caused a lot of movement in European football in just one year.

Due to his non-EU status and the fact that he is under the age of 18, Tan Xibi cannot enter the first team and the B team to participate in the league, and can only "skip" to follow Sporting's U19 youth team to play in the north and south. In the games he has played, the Under-19s have conceded an average of just 0.3 goals per game, and more than 90% of the games have been clean sheets, which is extremely rare in a youth team that is heavy on attack and light on defense.

In the 2016-17 season, Tan Xibi helped Sporting Under-19s win the Portuguese National Youth League title as a regular midfielder, and also helped the team to win the first place in the Devil's Group in the UEFA Youth League that season. You must know that this group has the youth teams of Real Madrid and Dortmund, both of which are above Sporting Portugal. Then he went all the way through the semi-finals, and Tan Xibi scored a killer goal to defeat derby rivals Benfica Juniors to advance to the final.

It's a pity that Tan Xibi, the hero of the stunner, stripped off and celebrated wildly after scoring the goal, received the second topaz card, and accumulated two yellow cards and missed the final. In the end, Sporting Portugal's U19s lost 2-0 to Salzburg in the UEFA Youth League final, failing to achieve the team's feat of winning the youth team double.

Although once again relegated to the runner-up, Sporting U19 is the dark horse of this "Little Champions League", the third in the league in terms of goals and the fewest goals conceded in the league.

As the core of the midfield of the Sporting Portugal U19 team, Tan Xibi deservedly won the Golden Ball Award of the European Youth League that season.

What's more, Tan Xibi is the youngest player in all the participating teams, all of whom were under the age of 18 at the end of the event, and the participating players are one or two years older than Tan Xibi.

Seeing the outstanding performance of their country's talented teenagers, the Portuguese media sang a chorus, and the fans of Sporting decided that if Tan Xibi did not accumulate yellow cards and missed the final, the Lions (the nickname of Sporting de Portugal) would definitely bring Portugal the first Lennart Larsson Cup (the name of the UEFA Youth League championship trophy) in a long time.

Why do you say it's been a long time?

It turned out that the UEFA Youth League was only established in the summer of 2013, and the first Benfica U19 team reached the final, but unfortunately lost 0-3 to the stronger Barcelona U19 team and failed to become the first champion.

This is Tan Xibi's first individual accolade at an intercontinental youth tournament, and his first accolade is naturally the Player of the Season award in the Portuguese National Youth League, and he was also named in the Team of the Season for both competitions as the best midfielder in the league and the best midfielder in the UEFA Youth League.

The organizer of the European Golden Boy Award, "Torino Sports Newspaper", regretted that if Tan Xibi had not risen too late, he would definitely be qualified to be shortlisted for this year's European Golden Boy Award with his performance in the "Little Champions League" carrying a team to the finals.

"He was the only one who didn't make the cuttable for the Golden Boy award, and that was a mistake in our work. Fortunately, he is still young, and if he can continue to maintain this excellent performance, his name will be on the list of next year's European Golden Boy Award. - Torino Sport

Someone wants to say that Tan Xibi is better than all foreign compatriots in Europe, why hasn't the Chinese national youth team recruited him yet?

First, Tan Xibi still has no agent.

Second, although he entered the youth academy of the Sporting de Portugal team with the help of Oliveira, because he was underage, Tan Xibi and the Sporting Portugal team only signed a youth team contract without much security, and the extremely insecure Tan Xibi would not consider returning to China to play until he signed a professional player contract.

In the end, the Chinese national youth team issued a call-up this summer, but Tan Xibi rejected it, and a conflict broke out between the two sides.

The thing is very simple, as soon as you enter the Chinese national team, it will greatly affect the career prospects of foreign players in Europe, these have lessons from the past, far away Xie Yanjian, Dong Yuanzhuo, etc., close to Zhang Yu, with national honor, patriotism and other disregard for the vital interests of the players to sabotage their overseas career, resulting in so many years, few Chinese players like Japanese and South Korean players have successfully gained a foothold in Europe.

Tan Xibi was born as an orphan, as the saying goes, "those who are barefoot are not afraid of wearing shoes", and finally stepped into the professional football industry, relying entirely on his own efforts, and Huaguo football did not help him at all in this regard. Besides, his player qualification is in the Portuguese Football Association, not in the Chinese Football Association, the Chinese Football Association wants to rectify him, hehe, Lao Tzu is a big deal to join the Portuguese nationality, at least he can still play in the European Cup and the World Cup.

This is also the reason why Tan Xibi has the confidence to fall out with the Chinese Football Association, but there is also the factor that the Chinese Football Association happened to hit the muzzle, who told Tan Xibi to be in a bad mood at that time.