Deco on Pinto da Costa: “Keeping that side another year wasn't easy” | OneFootball

A central figure at FC Porto and in Portuguese football, Deco gave an interview this Friday to GloboEsporte’s ‘Abre Aspas’, in which he recalled his golden period wearing the dragon on his chest, crowned by winning a UEFA Cup and a Champions League. The former midfielder also had high praise for the coach at the time, José Mourinho, as well as for Pinto da Costa.

“When Mourinho arrived, he brought order to the team. In terms of balance, of everything. It was a difficult year [2002], but he rebuilt the team. And the following year, with two, three, four players who came in, FC Porto created the foundation that went on to win the UEFA Cup, the Champions League and the rest. Mourinho, for me, was a revolutionary at the time. There weren’t that many analysts back then. Today we have all these tools to analyze the opposition, analysts for everything and anything. To have the tactical vision of what was going to happen in the game and prepare matches with such precision, like Mourinho did, I had never seen that before,” began the former Portugal international.

He added: “The training itself, the quality of the training, was very high, and the kind of exercises we did were very focused on the [next] game. He learned a lot from many people he worked with and created his own style. At the time, for me, he was a revolutionary. He changed a lot of concepts that nobody had seen before. In terms of mindset… Portugal always had that view of going into European competitions and not winning anything, of getting to a certain stage and going no further. Mentally, Mourinho changed that concept, that way of looking at the competition, and that was revolutionary.”

Deco also gave the ‘credit’ for FC Porto’s European triumphs to the club’s president at the time, Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, who has since passed away. “How do I explain winning the 2003/04 Champions League? Unexpected, obviously. FC Porto were not one of the favorites. What I think is that several things came together there that are hard to repeat. First, keeping the same team that had won a UEFA Cup, at a club like FC Porto, with the aggressive market that exists nowadays… Managing to keep that team together for one more year was not easy. I, for example, had an offer from Barcelona and the president didn’t let me leave that year, but he promised me he would let me go the following year. So we kept a team with the players we had: Ricardo Carvalho, me, Maniche, Vítor Baía… FC Porto also managed to strengthen the squad a little,” he said.

One of those signings was the Brazilian Carlos Alberto, who would go on to score in the Champions League final. “What surprised us most at the time was the maturity he showed for his age. He was very strong physically and he was fearless. Nothing fazed him. That was good for some things and bad for others. But at that time it was something out of the ordinary. Arriving at a team like FC Porto and asserting himself the way he did… Mourinho even started using him as a starter in several matches, instead of putting in other players who were already in the team. It was a surprise because of how old he was [19],” he admitted.

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