In the old days it was more often the opposite: the academy would belatedly gild the lily of commercial success with a shiny finish of ersatz class.
On the opposite end, some academy members, particularly those with a vested interest in the outcome, know enough to rank their own movie first and their closest competitor's last.
"Now it's the opposite: there are academies and so many opportunities for girls".
Britos attributes his own development, and that of many other Uruguayan players, to the demanding environment of street football, the polar opposite of the cosseted academies of Europe.
Croton-on-Hudson is 19 miles south of the US military academy on the opposite side of the Hudson river.
"Once a school becomes an academy, unless the opposite is clearly stated in a funding agreement, the obvious checks and balances like Ofsted, Sendist and the local authority drop out and Michael Gove drops in," he explains.
Tilbury, despite everything, is home to many such institutions: the football club, Fruitful Land, the dance academy that sits opposite the church on Civic Square and the famed Tilbury brass band, which can trace its history back almost a hundred years.
A few years ago, General Pinochet had O'Higgins' remains moved from the military academy to a site opposite the Presidential palace, where soldiers guard an eternal flame that marks a spot called the Altar of the Fatherland.
