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26/07/06Speaking some time back at a conference on motivation, Luíz Felipe Scolari told the story of his
first days with the Selecção
in 2002. He got the players together and asked them to imagine the team as a truck, and to consider what part of the truck each of them thought they represented. He found that what he had inherited from António Oliveira was a truck with four drivers and a wheel missing. Six months later, the same experiment came up with just two drivers and all the wheels in place.
This has been Scolari's great gift to Portugal: to take the rabble that crashed out of the 2002 World Cup and, with some strategic cuts, mould them into a solid, coherent group. In fact 'group' has
been the watchword for this team; it's the term most heard in interviews and press conferences, to the eerie point of making the players sound like brainwashed members of some weird cult. The philosophy is exploited to
the maximum by 'Sargentão' Scolari, who defends his players to the hilt and requires absolute allegiance in return, along with a sense of humility and a spirit of sacrifice. Cristiano Ronaldo is a case in point,
producing during the World Cup increasingly mature displays, notwithstanding the arguable rights or wrongs of his part in the Rooney incident. Scolari's faith in players whose inclusion in the team was
questioned paid dividends. Ricardo had a dodgy season at Sporting, Costinha was six months without playing after a dispute with Moscow Dynamo, Maniche's season was disrupted and uneven, a flagging Figo was struggling in
the autumn of his career, but all were first choices and had very good World Cups. Other decisions by the Brazilian coach that were criticised at the time also took on, in retrospect, the quality of astute foresight: FC
Porto's Ricardo Quaresma, Liga
player of the season, was left at home and proceeded to have a stinker of an U-21 European Championship, held in Portugal at the end of May. And choosing to have the pre-Germany training camp in of all places Évora, notoriously the hottest spot in Portugal and sweltering in a heat wave during the camp, in fact proved excellent preparation for the high temperatures in Germany.
While nationalistic euphoria was less intense than two years ago at Portugal's Euro 2004, when Scolari proclaimed that he wanted national flags hanging from every window, the povo's relationship
with the team was a more mature one this time and light years away from four years ago, the country then arrogantly expecting from the outset to see the Cup paraded along the Avenida da Liberdade. Falling in line
with Scolari's discretion ("We're in the top eight of the FIFA rankings, so we should come in the top eight in Germany. Anything more will be a bonus."), players and fans took each game as it came, and the latter at
least seemed genuinely chuffed at finishing not in the top eight but in the top four, despite the Selecção failing to equal the third place won by Eusébio's Magriços in 1966.
Another of Scolari's skills has been to foster a sense of inclusiveness around the Selecção. To hear a Senhora
in her sixties discussing team tactics with the shop assistant while she picked up her copy of 'Olá' was to know that Scolari had made A Equipa de Todos Nós
just that: the team of all Portuguese, regardless of age, sex, race, class. Hundreds of all shapes, sizes and colours were at the airport to greet the team on their return and hundreds more lined the roads to the National Stadium, where in May, 18,788 women had formed "The Most Beautiful Flag in the World" and put it in the Guinness Book of Records. This time, thousands sat for hours in the blazing sunshine to show their appreciation for a group that had done them proud. "The three symbols of the nation: the anthem, the flag and the
Selecção" ran one hastily felt-tipped banner. The farewell to the players, Figo and Pauleta for the last time, included a rousing rendition of Campeões, Campeões, nós somos Campeões! As the
players trooped away, (not before doing a conga on the pitch to "Uma Casa Portuguesa"), a few questions were left in the air. One, which had been determinedly deflected throughout the tournament, was whether Scolari
("Fica, fica, fica!" they chanted at the National Stadium – "Stay, stay, stay!") would be staying on or not. Another was what awaits national hero Cristiano Ronaldo on his return to club football. It seemed that the
poisonous message of the English tabloids had spread abroad, the player being booed relentlessly in the games against France and Germany. But the bitterness of some people's sour grapes could not spoil the sweetness of
a small country's modest moment of pride. (Article published in When Saturday Comes, August 2006)
31/05/06 In the last two years, José Mourinho has been to Portuguese football what Rebecca was to Manderlay in Daphne du Maurier's novel and Hitchock's
film of the same name: absent yet omnipresent. At his old club FC Porto, various coaches have tried and failed to measure up to the historic yardstick set by Mourinho during his spell there, whether
in material terms (back-to-back Liga
titles, a Portuguese Cup, an UEFA Cup and a Champions League title in two seasons) or in terms of style. Coach Co Adriaanse has just won the championship with Porto, but the team was widely seen as barely the best of a poor bunch vying for the title. And however honourable the man might be, his appeal factor struggles to rise above the dishwater-dull when held up against Mourinho's charisma, still hovering ghost-like above the
Estádio do Dragão. Both on and off the field, the Dutchman cannot escape comparisons with his Portuguese predecessor. His team has struggled to take his tactics on board, his presence in front of
the cameras is anything but comfortable, and during a particularly rocky period for Porto and Adriaanse this season, his car was stoned, with him in it, after a poor display and result at Rio Ave. The incident,
reportedly the work of members of the Porto claque Superdragões, immediately called to mind Mourinho's inevitably more dramatic run-in with the same claque
before Porto's Champions League Final against Monaco in Gelsenkirchen. The leader of the claque, Hélder Mota, allegedly threatened to shoot Mourinho, and later spat in his face in London; he
claimed that Mourinho had been sending secret SMS messages to his girlfriend (which she later denied). Mourinho has brought an action against Mota that will go to court in Lisbon in June. On a wider
scale, and as the country slides inexorably down the economic tubes, Portugal, a net exporter of human resources, has taken The Special One to its heart as a shining example of what is possible out there with a bit of
skill and nous. His earnings are held up as a holy grail for emigrant endeavour: you could practically hear the hands being rubbed together when France Football ran its list of the best-paid footballing folk in the
world, and there was Mourinho at the top of the coach category with a mouth-watering 11 million euros in 2005. The man has found his way onto other lists: he was voted the world's 6th
sexiest man by 'New Woman' magazine (with Claudia Schiffer and Elton John on the jury) and the second best-dressed man in Britain (after Clive Owen), distinctions gleefully reported by the Portuguese press to a society thirsty for aspirational figures. And along with Cristiano Ronaldo, he is currently at the top of the most-wanted list of Portuguese celebrities for marketing purposes: among others, he has lent his name to a 'Take your Holidays in Portugal' campaign for the Portuguese Tourist Board (with
Fado singer Mariza), the Portuguese bank BPI, American Express, Adidas and wine corks (Portugal is the world's largest producer of cork). The Portuguese were also amused to discover that Mourinho
was now at Madame Tussaud's and that his life might be made into a film, with George Clooney to play the lead. But all of this is not to say that Mourinho is necessarily liked very much in Portugal. There is, naturally,
admiration for his feats, domestically and in England, but warm and fluffy affection is quite conspicuous by its absence. A lot has to do with Mourinho's never-less-than controversial passage through
Portuguese football. His outspoken and confrontational style made him few friends outside the scope of FC Porto, especially with a sports press focussed predominantly on the south and the fortunes of Benfica and
Sporting. When he left for England, the distance allowed animosity towards him to diminish, admiration for him as a Portuguese success story to grow. But the dislike of his way of being is growing. The
Portuguese understand that a lot of his bluster is tactical, and have often delighted in it, but it has become rather wearing to watch it brought into play week after week (all of Chelsea's games are shown live on
Portuguese television). It was extremely difficult, for example, to swallow his crass reaction to Barcelona's demolition of Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, and various Portuguese commentators and columnists laid into him
for it. And there were a lot of nodding heads when the Portuguese press published the open letter to Mourinho from Bobby Robson, much respected in Portugal for his service to Sporting and FC Porto: "What
worries me, José, is that you have the potential to become one of the most popular and successful coaches the world has ever known, but this legacy is at risk because of a seemingly endless series of controversial
incidents." Mourinho has said that he would like to be Portugal's coach in a dozen years' time. Portugal will welcome him back for his talent, hoping that he will have lost a bit of the attitude. (Article published in When Saturday Comes, June 2006) 28/04/06
Luíz Felipe Scolari is extremely successful; as a national coach, he took Brazil to the World Cup title and Portugal
to the Euro 2004 Final. His quality gives him the right to aspire to greater things than 'merely' coaching a small country like Portugal, with its limited resources and ambitions. His contract is, after all, coming to an end, and sooner or later he will need to find work. Equally, the
English FA, looking for someone to translate England's quality in terms of players into titles, is entitled to approach who they see as the right man for the job.But on both sides, the timing
of this week's negotiations and job offer has been appalling. The Portugal and England teams take the World Cup
field in little over a month, and this recruitment process can only have been disruptive to their preparation. Scolari may have lessened the harm somewhat by rejecting the job offer, but some damage had already been done. Won't the
message
have been weakened when he's in the changing room and on television urging passion and loyalty to the cause? Why exactly couldn't he have left his job search until after the World Cup? You never know - Portugal's performance in Germany may raise considerably his cachet and the sums he can demand for a future contract. And surely he can't be so desperate for cash that he needs to step straight into another job the day after his contract expires on
31 July. Essentially, the whole sorry episode has exposed Luíz Felipe Scolari
for the mercenary that he is. Of course coaches are interested in money; they're only human. It's just that having the fact rubbed in our faces, and as close as we are to what could be an historic moment
for Portuguese football and Portugal itself, is frankly rather sickening. 12/02/06 On the pitch, Portugal and Angola
have met just twice, both trouncings that went Portugal's way: in 1989 they won 6-0, in 2001 5-1. The latter game had a whiff of colonial war about it.
"I appeal to the fans, both Portuguese and Angolan, to make this a festa", Portuguese Football Federation president Gilberto Madaíl had pleaded in the programme notes for the game. While at the
beginning the fans were up for the idea, the Angolan players appeared to have taken not the slightest bit of notice. By half time, three had been sent off. Within the hour, a sinister game plan began to
take shape, Angola rushing on all the substitutions they could make. On 65 minutes, another Angolan was sent off. Down to seven, it only needed Hélder Vicente to fall as if poleaxed on 70 minutes, with no substitutes to
take his place, to have the game abandoned. Initially festive Angolans, making up three quarters of the meagre 10,000 dotted around the old Alvalade stadium, had long since ceased to fazer a festa
, and by the half-hour mark had chosen instead to rip seats out and throw them onto the running track, then to abandon the stadium and cause mayhem in the surrounding streets. The Angolan coach at the
time, Mário Calado, was highly critical of the French referee, but could not in all honesty defend his own or his players' attitude on the night. This time it is the coach Luís de Oliveira Gonçalves who is trying to
smooth the way for a trouble-free opener: "At the World Cup, the two national teams have an obligation to leave a good image. Portugal and Angola are almost family, with very strong ties." The
war for Angola's independence, in the 60s and early 70s, along with the same movements in Portugal's other African colonies, shook the then regime in Portugal to its eventual demise, culminating in the 25 April
Revolution in 1974. While colonisation and the war left both countries with an ambiguous attitude to the other, the overriding feeling, and it is mutual, is that of brotherhood. So when those in charge
of Portuguese football called Portugal v Angola in the teams' first game of Group D "the draw we didn't want", the sentiment had perhaps more to do with the fear of complacency than anything else. Most of the Portuguese players do in fact see Angola as a pushover. The "nowadays there are no easy games" cliché has been trotted out to exhaustion, but Cristiano Ronaldo, Pauleta and Maniche,
to name but three, have all called the group (Angola, Iran and Mexico) by that most poisonous of names: "accessible". On paper, Angola should indeed be nothing to fear. The backbone of the
squad is made up of rejects from Portuguese clubs (Akwá, who passed with little glory through Benfica in the mid 90s), players plying their trade in the Portuguese lower divisions (for example Mendonça and 33-year-old
playmaker Figueiredo, both at Varzim of the second division), an out-of-work goalkeeper, João Ricardo, and Benfica's Pedro Mantorras, a centre forward with a big heart but a right knee held together with bits of sticky
tape. However, they beat Nigeria to the qualification wire with six wins, three draws and just one defeat, so slouches they cannot be. Luís Figo struck a sensible note of caution: "It's a dangerous
group. History tells us everything: whenever we've had 'easier' groups, we've had great difficulties." Coach Luíz Felipe Scolari had a similar warning: "It's good to remember that four years ago the euphoria
turned into a nightmare. We don't want to go through that again." In South Korea, Portugal had a theoretically 'accessible' group in the USA, Poland and South Korea, and the Selecção fell at the first fence.
Defeat to the USA in the opening game was the trampoline to disaster. Journalist Ferreira Fernandes, writing in the daily Correio da Manhã, hit the nail on the head for the opener this time
around: "Angola are the Hungary of Puskas; we've got six months to get that into our heads." (Article published in When Saturday Comes, February 2006)
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