The 10 best ever Portuguese football managers | OneFootball

Portugal has become a prodigious incubator for talented managers. Four or five decades ago, Portuguese football coaches were viewed in a poor light in comparison to their foreign counterparts by club presidents, supporters and even players, who seemed to trust those who came from abroad more.

Then, everything changed, and now the nation is in the leading pack in terms of international recognition of its football managers, who are much sought-after by top clubs all over the world, with European and South American giants eager to appoint Portugal’s finest tacticians in the quest to find their next messiah. The José Mourinho effect has much to do with it, of course, but there had been great managers before the Setúbal-born coach, as well as after he achieved superstardom. Here is our top ten list for you.

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Fernando Santos

Main honours: Euro 2016, Nations League 2019, Portuguese League 1998/99 

Fernando Santos is lifted aloft at Saint-Denis, Paris, as Portugal win Euro 2016

The man who broke Portugal’s deadlock, who helped FC Porto make history, and yet is somehow not passionately loved by either Seleção fans or supporters of the Blue and Whites. Santos will forever be remembered as the main man behind Portugal’s Euro 2016 win, and its first Nations League trophy – the first major international trophies lifted by the Seleção – but somehow his style of management was never endearing to supporters.

A pragmatist, he began his coaching career at Estoril, where he had played in the 1970s after a brief spell in Benfica’s youth system, before he moved to Amadora. At Estrela, he was touted as one of the most promising managers in Portugal for a couple of seasons when, out of the blue, FC Porto president Pinto da Costa offered him a chance to enter the history books, after António Oliveira left the Dragons in 1998. His job was simple: to make Porto the first-ever Portuguese side to win a fifth league title in a row. He did so in the penultimate fixture, after Boavista stumbled in Faro, and became forever known in the north as the “Engineer of the Penta”, due to his electronics engineering degree.

He owed much to the goals scored by Mário Jardel, beautifully assisted by the likes of Drulovic, Capucho, Zahovic and Deco, but was unable to sustain the winning cycle in the following season, despite reaching the Champions League last eight. After a poor third season – losing the title to Boavista – he left Portugal, where he briefly returned for unsuccessful spells at Sporting and Benfica, while moving around in the Greek league. He built a fine reputation in Greece at some of the country’s biggest clubs and was finally named national head coach for the Hellenic national side, with positive results.

In 2014, after Paulo Bento was sacked due to a poor start to Euro 2016 qualifying, Santos was appointed Portugal manager. He immediately brought his pragmatism, got rid of the usual 4-3-3 Portugal played with and moved to a striker-less formation that helped Nani and Ronaldo roam freely, supported by a tight defensive line. Portugal qualified for the Euros but barely scraped through the group stage alive, after three draws. What happened next became history, as the Seleção beat Croatia, Poland and Wales before a late Éder goal clinched them the title in Paris against the host nation.

It was the pinnacle of his career and Portuguese football, and it all went sideways after that. Poor results in the 2018 World Cup and the 2020 Euros, despite a first win at the inaugural Nations League in between, and the inability to take advantage of a much more talented generation than the one he had in 2016, were the end of the line. The feud against Ronaldo during the 2022 World Cup added fuel to the fire, and after a surprise defeat against Morocco in the quarter-final, Santos stepped down from the job. Despite his football never being well liked, he was a groundbreaking manager in Portuguese football history.

José Maria Pedroto

Main Honours: Portuguese League 1977/78, 1978/79

FC Porto coach José Pedroto, alongside club president Pinto da Costa

He was the before and after moment in the life of Portuguese managers. Before his arrival and success, they were perceived poorly, often regarded as inferior to any foreign manager clubs could find elsewhere, from the United Kingdom to Hungary, from Brazil to Argentina. Pedroto changed everything, not only for himself but for those who carried the torch afterwards.

A midfield prodigy, once the most expensive signing in Portuguese football, he played most of his career with FC Porto, with whom he won the only two league titles the Dragons achieved between 1942 and 1977, their worst historical period. He was the first Portuguese manager to get a degree abroad, with top grades, and guided the under-21 national side to the first unofficial Euros with many promising players who would become part of the 1966 World Cup campaign. His career with smaller sides like Leixões and Académica looked promising enough for Porto to hire him to win their first league in a decade, something he almost achieved before being undermined by his own players, who weren’t ready for his full professional approach to the game.

Sacked by the board, he wasn’t a man able to keep his criticism under wraps, and it took a heated club members’ assembly to oust him from the institution altogether. He did win a Cup, though, Porto’s only trophy for fifteen years, before moving to Setúbal, where he turned the Sado-side into title contenders as well as guiding them to some of their most memorable European nights against the likes of Liverpool, Leeds and Tottenham Hotspur. After the April Revolution, he was sacked for siding with his players in a power tussle with the board and moved back to the city of Porto, but to take hold of Boavista, until then a minnow in Portuguese football. He transformed the Bessa side into title contenders too, punching neck to neck with Benfica for the league while humbling Porto in the process.

When his good friend Pinto da Costa was offered the role of sporting director by Porto president, Américo de Sá, he did so with the sole condition that Pedroto was signed back to finish the job he had proposed to do a decade earlier. And so it came to pass. Winner of the Portuguese Cup in his first season, he then won back-to-back league titles for the first time in four decades for the Dragons while reshaping the club’s DNA, bringing a fearsome competitive edge that has since become synonymous with the Dragons. For his uncompromising stance against the Lisbon giants, the Portuguese Football Federation and referees, he was sacked after a fourth season finished trophyless, causing the players to go on strike and Pinto da Costa to resign in his support.

He moved to Guimarães, where he planted the seed for a new winning project and was about to take Vitória to the same heights as he had with Setúbal and Boavista when Pinto da Costa, now elected chairman, knocked on his door to come back. He did, but by then he was already consumed by cancer. Unable to beat Sven-Goran Eriksson’s brilliant Benfica side, he helped Porto reach their first European final in 1984, defined the blueprint of the all-conquering side of the following seasons and urged Pinto da Costa to appoint Artur Jorge as his successor, before passing away in January 1985. More than the accolades he won, the fact that he was able to make mid-table sides into league contenders and that he almost single-handedly reshaped the identity of FC Porto granted him immortality.

Carlos Queiroz

Main Honours: Under-20 World Cup 1989, 1991

Carlos Queiroz with Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson during a training session in 2007. (Photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

Carlos Queiroz’s career can be divided into four phases. There’s the famous assistant role in Manchester, helping Sir Alex Ferguson build two fearsome sides in the early and then late 2000s. The disappointing club career manager, where he failed to lead Sporting to a much-expected title in 1993/94 and the following season, and, most spectacularly, presided over the demise of the Real Madrid Galacticos project in 2003/04. Then there’s the lauded national manager of many international sides, from the 1990s onwards, although his two stints with Portugal were disappointing.

What makes him a key pillar in the history of the Portuguese game was what he achieved both with the youth setups and within the academic world, where he pioneered a way of thinking about the game that moulded every single Portuguese manager since. Queiroz was born in Mozambique and, like many, came to Lisbon after the April 1974 revolution, where he enrolled in the local Physical Education university, and where he met kindred spirits like Nelo Vingada and Jesualdo Ferreira. Together, they forged a new way of thinking about the game, preparing training sessions, adapting other exercises taken from other sports and embracing a new philosophy that became known as tactical periodisation. His classes were full of eager young students who knew that they couldn’t play the game at the highest level but wanted to have something to say on how the game was coached and perceived, most famously among them a certain José Mourinho.

That would have been enough to grant Queiroz a place in history, but he then took his ideals to youth football and embraced a position within the Portuguese Federation, with the help of former international star José Augusto, where he would take the Portuguese game decades into the future. He specialised in statistical analysis, scouting every single local youth tournament in the land and soon found himself with a very talented generation that he nurtured from their early teens. With them, Queiroz won the 1989 Under-20 World Cup – the nation’s first international trophy – and then took them to greater heights by making it back-to-back wins as the country hosted the event in 1991. The Golden Generation of Luís Figo, Rui Costa and João Pinto would become a landmark in the Portuguese game over the years to come, and since then, clubs’ academies followed his template to turn themselves into some of the most admired and profitable youth setups in world football.

Abel Ferreira

Main Honours: Copa Libertadores 2020, 2021, South American Recopa 2022, Brazilian League 2022 and 2023

Abel Ferreira acknowledges the Palmeiras fans after beating LDU Quito in the Copa Libertadores in 2025. (Photo: Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images)

When Abel Ferreira landed in São Paulo, nobody expected him to become one of the greatest managers in the history of South American football. His impact was immediate, and he has since become the most successful manager of the century in the region. A former right-back, he enjoyed a successful career at Vitória SC and Sporting before his playing days were cut short by injury. At just 32, he began his coaching career in the Braga youth setups in 2011, before being promoted to take over the first team in 2017, leading the club to two records the following season – their most points won and most goals scored in a campaign – even if they finished only fourth in the end.

A brief spell at PAOK preceded a move to Palmeiras, where the club were aiming to emulate Jorge Jesus’s success at Flamengo. Nobody expected Abel would be even more successful than his countryman. He arrived in November of 2020 and over the next five years the club won two Libertadores trophies – in 2020 and 2021 – a South American Recopa (the equivalent of the Europa League in the continent) in 2022 and several national trophies, becoming the first foreigner since Belá Guttman to claim the Paulistão regional league in 2022, a competition he has won in every single season since. He also became the first foreigner to claim back-to-back league titles in Brazil, winning the 2022 and 2023 editions of the championship. His tactical approach, man management and ability to connect with the Palmeiras faithful has already made him a legend in South America, while many expect that he will eventually return to Europe to test himself in the continent’s top leagues in the years to come.

Fernando Vaz

Main Honours: Portuguese League 1969/70, Portuguese Cup 1964/65, 1966/67, 1970/71

One of the unsung heroes of Portuguese football, Vaz is the link between Cândido de Oliveira, with whom he served as an apprentice, and José Maria Pedroto, who regarded him as a great inspirational figure. Raised at Casa Pia, Vaz played for the club for five seasons before embracing a coaching career as deputy of Oliveira at Sporting during the famous Five Violins era. He then became the first deputy to gain notoriety flying solo when he embraced a role as Belenenses manager in 1951, thus beginning a career that lasted for a quarter of a century, where he coached all the biggest sides in Portugal, bar Benfica, including the national side during brief spells.

He was Porto manager on two occasions in the 1950s, became Belenenses manager in three different spells, as with Vitória SC, but it was with his beloved Sporting and Vitória Setúbal that he reached the height of his career. With the Lions, whom he coached first in 1959 and then again in 1969, he won the 1970 Cup and 1971 Portuguese League, after having transformed Vitória FC into title contenders and Cup winners in the mid-1960s, three times visiting Jamor to claim the cup on two different occasions. He set the blueprint of the side that would allow the Bonfim supporters to enjoy their golden era, with many of the players he coached later moving to either Benfica or Sporting in the following seasons, such as Jaime Graça and Vitor Baptista. Extremely popular among players and supporters, he was a club man who encapsulated all the positive traits of the Portuguese managers from the 1950s and 1960s, who were rarely well-regarded by the club’s boards, mainly at the top.

Toni

Main Honours: Portuguese League 1988/89, 1993/94

If he had won the 1987/88 European Cup, not only would the famous Guttman course not have sustained the test of time, but also his name would have surely got a higher recognition than it finally did, and he would undoubtedly have ranked alongside his then friend Artur Jorge as one of the game’s greats. Sadly for him, Veloso’s final penalty kick changed the perception many supporters have of one of the most inspiring football managers in the history of Portuguese football. A former brilliant midfielder, first with Académica, and then Benfica, Toni was the real clubman. His allegiance to the Eagles cost him dearly in the years to come, but cemented his cult status at the Luz. He began as assistant to Sven-Goran Eriksson when the club signed the Swede in 1982 and he was part of that all-conquering winning side that took Portuguese football by storm for a couple of seasons.

During Euro 1984, he also served in the national side’s quadrumvirate managerial team under Fernando Cabrita with great success. He got his first break in 1987, and in his first season in charge, Toni guided Benfica to the European Cup final, lost in Stuttgart against PSV. He proceeded to win the Portuguese league the following season, but when the club announced Eriksson’s return, he had no issues in accepting a secondary role once again, instead of moving elsewhere to follow his managerial career. When Erikson left for a second time, he was appointed head coach once again and, against all the odds, guided the Eagles to the 1993/94 league trophy, one of the most memorable wins in the history of the club.

Sacked in the summer as the board decided to secretly bring in his former friend and teammate Artur Jorge, he left with his pride hurt and moved to France, where he coached Girondins Bordeaux, guiding the Zinedine Zidane-led side to a European place, which would allow them to play the UEFA Cup final the following season. After a brief and unsuccessful spell at Sevilla, he returned to Benfica to replace José Mourinho, after Manuel Vilarinho won the presidential ballot and Mourinho presented his resignation following a 3-0 win against Sporting. His two years in charge were uneventful and his club career in Europe ended, but successful spells followed in Africa and the Middle East, preceding the exploits of the likes of Manuel José, Jesualdo Ferreira and Jorge Jesus in the region in the years to come.

Artur Jorge

Main Honours: European Cup 1986/87, Portuguese League 1984/85, 1985/86, 1990/91, Ligue 1 1993/94

Under Artur Jorge FC Porto became European Champions for the first time in 1987

King Artur, as he was famously known in Porto, became the first international manager of Portuguese football. If Pedroto planted the seed, Jorge was the first to collect the fruit. A fabulous goalscorer during his playing days at Académica and Benfica, his career was cut short by injury, and after unremarkable spells at Portimonense and Belenenses, he was signed on Pedroto’s council, who had him as assistant at Guimarães, to lead his boyhood club FC Porto to glory.

He did just that. Taking advantage of Pedroto’s tactical groundwork and change in mentality as well as the arrival of the likes of Rabath Madjer, Paulo Futre and Josef Mlynarczik, he guided the Dragons to back-to-back honours between 1984 and 1986 before clinching the club’s first European trophy, after beating Bayern Munich in a comeback final played at Vienna in 1987. His celebrity status led Racing Matra, which was trying to bankroll itself to success in France, to hire him for the following season, but he was never able to reproduce the same rate of success in what quickly became a failed project. In 1988, he came back to Porto and won another league title before embracing the role of national manager, without success. He then returned to Paris, where he finally made PSG league champions, after memorable European wins against the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona, becoming the first Portuguese manager to enjoy success abroad.

In 1994, he returned to Portuguese football to take the reins of Benfica, but his tenure was a failure and ended his longtime friendship with his former teammate Toni, kickstarting what Benfica supporters still call the Vietnam era. Later he was Switzerland’s head coach during the 1996 European Championship. His career was cut short by health issues at the end of the 1990s. His impact was intense, even if his career didn’t last more than a decade at the top, but he was the one who made Portuguese managers fashionable in the international markets.

José Mourinho

Main Honours: Champions League 2003/04, 2009/10, UEFA Cup 2003/04, Europa League 2016/17, Conference League 2021/22, Premier League 2004/05, 2005/06, 2014/15, La Liga 2011/12, Serie A 2008/09, 2009/2010, Portuguese League 2002/03, 2003/04

José Mourinho embraces Paulo Ferreira after winning the Champions League in 2004

The greatest. There is no other way to describe José Mourinho and his impact on Portuguese, and indeed, world football. A bright young mind when his career started, a revolutionary wherever he went and a serial winner whose late years have somehow shaded how groundbreaking he once was. Son of a popular goalkeeper and manager, Mourinho Félix, he grew up in a football-loving family and clearly understood he had no ability to become the midfielder he had once dreamed of being. Enrolling in college helped him understand there were other ways to see the game, radically different from what was being done in the dugouts, and he proposed to lead the change.

He worked as an assistant first for Manuel Fernandes, then for Bobby Robson and finally for Louis van Gaal for over a decade before embracing his first solo role, by taking over Benfica. During five months, he showed traits developed over the years to come, in his relationships with players, the press and the board. Resigning after beating Sporting, hoping to land the job at Alvalade, was a crossroads moment for Portuguese football. Things went wrong and he lost both job opportunities, but he resurfaced months later in Leiria, making the local side the flavour of the month. So much so that Porto president Pinto da Costa, who knew him from his Robson deputy years, came calling.

In two and a half seasons, Mourinho created the greatest masterpiece in the history of Portuguese football. Two league wins, a Cup, a Supercup, a UEFA Cup and, famously, a Champions League for the Dragons made him the hottest ticket in the room. The Roman Abramovich millions took him to the Premier League, where he announced himself as The Special One. It wasn’t just pride talking. He quickly took Chelsea to back-to-back league honours, and only the lack of European gold and a tense relationship with the Russian over signings ended his first spell at the Bridge.

His greatest wish was to succeed Frank Rijkaard at Barcelona, but when the club went for Pep Guardiola, he moved to Italy instead, where he created his most recognisable side, taking Inter to back-to-back Serie A league titles and yet another Champions League. Real Madrid followed, and during the three seasons he spent at the Castellana, Mourinho changed as a manager and as an individual, and so did his aura. Despite winning the club’s most memorable league, the relationship with his star players and the lack of Champions League wins proved his demise. He went back to London, clinched a third Premier League trophy, but from then on, his career went sideways.

Not that he has taken a back seat. A Europa League winner at Manchester United, sacked by Tottenham on the eve of a League Cup final, taking Roma to their first continental success in the inaugural UEFA Conference League season, and a forgettable experience in Turkey preceded his return to Portugal with his eyes clearly set on landing the job as Portugal’s national team manager. Mourinho redesigned the role of football manager worldwide with his tactical, training and player and media relationship and led the trend that turned the manager into the star of the show. The past decade may have been lacklustre by comparison with the first half of his career, but his legacy remains unrivalled.

Cândido de Oliveira

Main Honours: Portuguese League 1947/48, 1948/49

Player, national team captain, manager, journalist, spy. Cândido de Oliveira is the single most important individual in the first half-century of Portuguese football by a mile. An orphan brought up at the Casa Pia institution, he became a football star serving Benfica, the club he famously supported, before leaving the Eagles to help form the Casa Pia football club, which he guided to the Lisbon championship in his first season. His celebrity status made him the team captain for Portugal’s first ever match, against Spain, with the side wearing the Casa Pia all-back kit.

He quickly embraced roles as a pioneering football journalist and manager, working for several publications, most famously Stadium, before helping to launch A Bola, alongside his friends Ribeiro dos Reis and Ricardo Ornelas. He guided Portugal to their memorable campaign at the 1928 Olympics, and coached Belenenses, FC Porto and Sporting, where he landed his sole league title honours, with a brief spell at Flamengo, becoming the first Portuguese manager who worked abroad.

During World War II, he also served as the cornerstone of the Shell operation, a British secret service plan to frustrate Adolf Hitler’s control of the Mediterranean, until he was arrested by Salazar’s secret police and sent to Tarrafal, a prisoner camp in Cape Verde, where he witnessed how the regime treated the opposition ring leaders. Brought back at the insistence of the British ambassador in Lisbon when the war was all but won, he was allowed to resume his work but was forever tagged by the regime, which prevented him from taking a director role at A Bola. Coaching Porto and Académica in the 1950s preceded his retirement from the dugout due to health issues that would eventually cost his life as he was covering the 1958 World Cup in Sweden on site.

Oliveira wrote seminal works about man management, befriended the likes of Hugo Meisl and Herbert Chapman, and is credited for bringing the WM to Portugal as well as coaching many future managers who would shape the Portuguese game in the decades to come. Nobody was as influential as he nor lived a more eventful life.

Jorge Jesus

Main Honours: Copa Libertadores 2019, Portuguese League 2009/10, 2013/14, 2014/15, Brasileirão 2019

Jorge Jesus brought the glory days back to Benfica during his first spell at the Lisbon giants. (Photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images)

The biggest ego in town, Jorge Jesus, has lived according to his flamboyant spirit. A former first division footballer, born in the rundown Lisbon suburb of Amadora, he rose to become the most popular manager in Portuguese football, but took his time to get to the top. By the mid-1990s, he was preaching Johan Cruyff’s tactical approach, whom he famously visited at Barcelona, with Felgueiras, whom he guided to the first division. For the following decade, he became a promising figure but never quite met the lofty expectations until he helped Belenenses enjoy their last truly enjoyable period, guiding the Belém side to European football for the last time in their history. From there, he moved to Braga, where he planted the seed for the winning project that unfolded in the years to follow, before getting the chance he had always craved for.

His arrival at Benfica’s Estádio da Luz was full of expectation, and he quickly understood that he and the club were a match made in heaven. Winning the league in his first season – against his former club Braga – was a thundering success, particularly because of the way the side played, but then Jesus had to endure three seasons where he always came as runner-up to Porto. If 2010/11 was painful enough, when he was humiliated by the Dragons in the league and beaten by Braga in the Europa League semi-finals, the 2012/13 season went from potential unprecedented glory to hell by losing the league in the dying seconds of the away match at the Dragão before losing the Europa League final against Chelsea and the Portuguese Cup also in the final instants.

Any other manager would have lurched into depression, but Jesus was rescued by his ego and hunger, and he led Benfica to a memorable following season, clinching a domestic Treble and reaching another Europa League final, lost on penalties. It was the first of four consecutive league wins for the Eagles, two won by himself, before a shock move to Alvalade, where he was persuaded to guide his boyhood club to similar heights. He almost did it in his inaugural season, but then left the club after the dismal events of Alcochete.

Seen as a pariah in Portuguese football, he decided to move to Brazil, where he became a pioneer for an invasion of Portuguese managers who would soon take the nation by storm. There, he guided Flamengo to the league and Libertadores trophies, thus becoming the first Portuguese manager to win trophies in South America. From there, he moved to Benfica again, without success this time, to Turkey and Saudi Arabia, where he waits for the opportunity of one day becoming the Portuguese national manager. Big-mouthed, known for his very personal use of vocabulary, popular amongst the most veteran players owing to his tactical acumen, Jesus is undoubtedly the most successful Portuguese manager since the arrival of Mourinho.