Rui Quinta: “[Vitor Pereira] will be cheered, his Porto spell says it all” | OneFootball

4,716 days.

That is how much time has passed since Vítor Pereira’s last appearance at the Estádio do Dragão as FC Porto head coach, specifically in the famous win over Benfica, sealed by Kelvin’s goal, on 11 May 2013. This Thursday, the Portuguese coach returns to the Dragons’ home, now to face Nottingham Forest, his current club.

Fate decreed that the coach, now 57, would return to a stage he knows well, in the first leg of the Europa League quarter-finals. The English side reached this stage after knocking out Midtjylland in the round of 16, while the blue-and-whites saw off Stuttgart.

With these elements on the table and ahead of the reunion between coach and club, Rui Quinta, Vítor Pereira’s assistant during his spell at the Dragão, gave his assessment of Nottingham’s Portuguese coach.

“He was very intelligent in the transition from assistant to head coach”

“I never felt he was under pressure. If there is any place to begin coaching at the highest level, it is FC Porto. At that time the club had exemplary organisation and a squad with a lot of quality. It is extraordinary when we have that at our disposal. Vítor was very intelligent in the way he made the transition from assistant to head coach; he had the respect of all the players,” says Rui Quinta.

“Leaving? He and his family were under huge exposure”

Under Vítor Pereira, FC Porto played 60 league matches and lost only one, in 2011/12, against Gil Vicente. For Rui Quinta, the explanation is relatively simple.

“Any team is a reflection of its coach. Beyond that, it also had to do with the belief that was built and the trust in the coach that existed. When you have a capable coach and a quality squad, everything becomes easier. There was a great deal of confidence in the ideas that were being passed on,” he says, highlighting, in this regard, the way the 2012/13 squad reacted to the draw against Marítimo on matchday 23, which left the club four points behind leaders Benfica:

“The title was at stake, but Vítor was able to pull the players together and unite them around his belief. I remember him saying there were seven games left and that, if we won them, we would be champions. That is exactly what happened.”

Believing that, if FC Porto had not been knocked out by Málaga in the Champions League round of 16 in that second season, they “would hardly have become champions,” the coach naturally highlights the match of Kelvin’s goal. “It is something that stays in my mind; whenever I talk about my time at FC Porto, that is the first thing I think of. It was a hard-fought victory against a good opponent, who had also not lost in the league. It was a great, emotional moment.”

With so many positives, why did the coaching staff not remain in charge of the club in 2013/14? “That is a question that has to be put to Vítor. At the time, given the circumstances in which he lived through that final stage of the league campaign, it was what he felt was the right thing to do. It has to do with the environment in which everything is experienced; he and his family were under huge exposure. It was partly to protect himself and to experience other things,” explains our interviewee.

And even though more than a decade has passed since Vítor Pereira’s ‘goodbye’ to FC Porto, Rui Quinta believes the coach will be warmly received at the Estádio do Dragão:

“Vítor is a three-time champion coach; he has one title as an assistant and two as head coach. During this period he suffered only one league defeat. These are facts. I may not like him or someone else may not like him, but the truth is that he is one of the most successful coaches in FC Porto’s history. I believe he will be very well received; the fans know how to recognise those who worked for the good of the club. An ovation? I think so; his record at FC Porto is untouchable. He now returns after 13 years and will be warmly welcomed. He always expressed the desire to coach in the Premier League, and he deserved the opportunity he is getting.”

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