'It was impossible': João Koehler admits Pinto da Costa knew he would lose | OneFootball

One of the most surprising episodes recounted in Captain of April – André Villas-Boas and the Unfinished Revolution is featured here. The book also brings together other significant episodes, covering the final years of Pinto da Costa’s presidency, a General Assembly remembered for all the wrong reasons with assaults on Porto fans (November 2023), the campaign and the elections of April 2024—in which Villas-Boas clearly put an end to the 40-year term of Pinto da Costa—and the first year of Villas-Boas’s presidency.

Regarding the elections, there is an interesting detail: Pinto da Costa apparently realized, at a certain point during the campaign, that he would be defeated by the former coach nicknamed “dream chair”—the same one who, in 2010/11, at the helm of FC Porto, led the club to win the league, the Super Cup, the Portuguese Cup, and the Europa League. This version was shared by João Rafael Koehler, number two on the ticket of the “president of presidents,” especially because polls they had commissioned indicated voting intentions of around 70% for André Villas-Boas.

“The president knew perfectly well that the election was lost and wanted to run the campaign,” Koehler assured. “It was absolutely unfeasible. And we had many conversations about it, but the president really wanted to see it through to the end,” he continued, adding that “15 days or three weeks before the elections, it was clear the president was already below 28%” in the polls.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.