Santos U17

The academy's cabinet holds 7 Campeonato Paulista Sub-17 titles, though the last of them took 10 years to arrive. Santos won the state youth title in 2010 and again in 2014, then spent the rest of the decade losing finals — to Palmeiras in 2011, Corinthians in 2013, São Paulo in both 2015 and 2016, and Palmeiras once more in 2022 — before winning it back in 2024. That same year the club also finished third in the Campeonato Brasileiro Sub-17, its best result yet in a national competition it has never won; two years earlier it had gone out in fourth.

The academy goes by the name Meninos da Vila, and its graduate list runs through the history of Brazilian football. Pelé made his first appearance through it in 1956. Robinho and Diego followed in 2002, Neymar in 2009 — the same year he also turned out for Brazil's own U17 side — and Gabriel Barbosa in 2013. Ângelo Gabriel skipped the category altogether, called up to the first team at 15 in 2020 without ever playing a match at U17 level.

Santos brought its youth categories under one training structure on 7 August 2006, decades after the Sub-17 side had already started winning state titles — the first of them in 1980. Training and most home games take place at the CT Rei Pelé, in the Saboó district of the city, a ground with room for 5,000. Fixtures that need more space move to Vila Belmiro, the first team's own stadium, where Meninos da Vila play in front of Santos's crowd.