Sergio Raimundo had the luxury of working with Manchester City superstars Ederson, Bernardo Silva and Joao Cancelo long before Pep Guardiola got his hands on them.

Throw in Andre Gomes, Helder Costa and Ivan Cavaleiro and the Benfica U19 side that the current Hibs assistant coached just over a decade ago reads like a who’s who of Portuguese football. Raimundo has no shame admitting that he learned more as a young coach from those players than he himself imparted on the soon-to-become sensations. It helped set the 39-year-old on a worldwide footballing journey stretching from Senegal to Brazil and Australia before finally landing in Leith a little over two months ago alongside Nick Montgomery.

Producing young talent remains a vital part of his footballing DNA according to the Portuguese coach. At Central Coast Mariners with Montgomery the duo turned a side that had been lurking at the bottom of the A-League into champions with a team made up largely from home grown players.

The signs are already there that this will be a key feature of their Hibs side too. Rory Whittaker became the club’s youngest ever top team player at 16 years and 44 days in only their second game in charge. The full back now has six top team appearances under his belt. Josh Landers has made his bow at just 16 as well and both kids have since signed new contracts.

Raimundo said: “There’s more to come. We are investing not only time in training the first team but with the academy coaches and making sure they have good structures, organisation and facilities. There will be more to come, for sure.

“That’s the DNA. Nick was brought through the youth system at Sheffield United. He was a local boy and knows that feeling of being a local boy coming through the system into the fist team.”

It was also at his own local side, Benfica, that Raimundo got his big break. Rising from coach of the U10s to the U19s before he’d even reached the age of 30. Speaking on the Inside Training Podcast, he said: “At that point there was no 23s or reserves so the second team was the 19s.

“The 19s team was fantastic. There was Ederson, Joao Cancelo at full back, there was Fabio Cardoso now centre back of Porto, Bernardo Silva, Andre Gomes at Everton, Ivan Cavaleiro at Fulham, Helder Costa at Leeds.. It wasn’t about spotting the talent - it was already there coming through the academy.

“I’ll be very honest. It was my fourth year as a coach and I learned more from the players at that time than what they learned from me.

“I learned more about how they behave and how they accept people in the group. How they accept coaches or don’t accept coaches. How they don’t accept other players with certain attitudes. I learned more from them than I passed on.”

That hunger to expand his football brain saw Raimundo - who now speaks six languages - move on to positions in Senegal, Brazil and Canada before he got the call from Montgomery to join him Down Under at the Mariners.

The pair had met at a coaching course in Belfast and instantly struck up a working relationship.

It was to prove hugely successful in the A-League where, after a successful spell in the academy the duo were placed in charge of the top team and led the Mariners to the unlikeliest of championships in June.

He said: “Central Coast had some good players in the past but at that time they were in a grey area, the previous six years they’d finished last four times.

“They weren’t producing any players. It was quite bad at the time and we got a bag of balls on a bit of grass where people used to walk their dogs. They said ‘you guys sort it out’.

"And we did sort it out. We were champions at U20s, champions with the 23s playing against men in the third division and from that group of players maybe even or eight of them won the cup with us a few years later.

“Since 2019 til last season when we won the championship most of the side were academy players who grew with us. We were the number one club in AFC and 17th in the world for academy developed players playing in the first team.”

With that success in mind the call from Easter Road in August perhaps wasn’t such a long shot. Raimundo said: “Hibs? A no brainer is what you say yeah?

“It’s a massive club. It’s incredible because Nick said no to so many clubs. I knew the club, the history, you have TV everywhere. I used to ‘commentate’ with Jason Cummings.. the Hibs games, the Old Firm games. He would be asking if I stayed up. Texting each other.

“We knew a lot of teams. We saw how teams were playing and we had a strong belief we could make an impact.”