Sérgio Conceição: “I've no intention of becoming FC Porto president” | OneFootball

Sérgio Conceição has, for now, ruled out any scenario involving a future run for the FC Porto presidency. In a conversation in which his recent past at the club served as the backdrop, the former Dragons coach spoke about how he views the future and the mark he wants to leave behind. And when faced with the most speculative question of all, he was unequivocal: “it’s not on my mind at the moment.”

Two years after leaving FC Porto, Sérgio Conceição reappeared in a more introspective mode, less focused on the noise and more on defining himself. The moment invited a revisit to his intense connection with the club, but his answer ended up opening another window instead: that of a man who refuses to project himself into positions of power and who continues to see himself, above all, within the logic of the daily struggle.

Asked about the rumors placing him, one day, on the path to the FC Porto presidency, Sérgio Conceição responded without feeding speculation and without yielding to the temptation of a political horizon. His tone was restrained, almost unwilling to turn conjecture into a plan.

“Sandra has a few tricks up her sleeve...,” he began. “But I, honestly, don’t think... I mean, I don’t think long term.”

In that reply, there is more than a circumstantial denial. There is a way of being: that of someone who describes himself through the urgency of the present and not through building a career beyond the career itself.

As the question became more pointed and the possibility was raised again more directly, the former coach kept the same line. Without dramatizing it, without solemnly shutting doors, but also without leaving any room for misunderstanding.

“No, it hasn’t crossed my mind, honestly,” he said. “No, but I hear it—and we all hear it, right? Because today it’s easy to hear opinions, with the scale social media has reached... Anyway, I hear certain things, but no, I haven’t thought about it, I’m not thinking about it in the near future, no.”

It is an answer that exposes the contrast between the external noise and his inner position. Conceição acknowledges the atmosphere of speculation surrounding him, but refuses to give it substance, preferring to stay off that board.

Later confronted with a more distant horizon, he again refused to pin down a destination. And it was precisely there that his explanation took on a more personal depth, shifting from the language of role to that of the intensity with which he lives.

“I don’t know, honestly, I don’t know,” he admitted. “I live my day-to-day life so intensely and passionately, my relationship with my profession is so intense, so strong, as it is with my family and with what is also my group of friends, that thinking in the medium term is already difficult for me—imagine the long term.”

The coach also stressed this impossibility of seeing himself, at this moment, in that role.

“So, it’s something that hasn’t crossed my mind and isn’t on my mind at the moment.”

More than dodging the question, the portrait he leaves is that of someone anchored in the present, in his profession, his family, and his closest circle. The idea of the presidency thus appears not as a postponed project, but as a possibility that has not even truly entered the field of priorities.

In the end, when the conversation moved away from a possible position and into the legacy he hopes to leave, the answer was as revealing as the previous ones. If he refused to imagine himself in the presidency, when it came to the memory he wants to leave behind, he showed no hesitation.

“The word that comes to mind when you ask me that is ‘fighter.’ Fighter,” he explained. “I fought. I continue to fight a lot. A lot! In my life, in my profession, I continue to fight a lot.”

Ultimately, it is the clearest summary of the character he sought to portray: less interested in the position he may one day hold and more in the way he moves through life. Not the institutional figure, not the behind-the-scenes strategist, but the man who insists on defining himself with a simple yet weighty word: fighter.

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