Former Sporting manager admits it was four intense years | OneFootball

The former assistant coach of Paulo Bento, between 2005 and 2014, at Sporting and the Portuguese National Team, Leonel Pontes, recalled his time with the Lions between 2005/2006 and 2009/2010, stating that his time at Alvalade was exhausting, but he achieved great feats.

"My integration into Sporting's main team came at the invitation of Paulo Bento, and those four years were very intense. We fought for two years, until the last matches, for the national championship title. We didn't achieve it, but we won two Portuguese Cups and two Cândido de Oliveira Super Cups, besides having very significant participations in the Champions League", he admitted in an interview with the Podcast "Sem Filtros".

The current technical director of the Chinese team Shanghai Shenhua spoke about his experience in foreign football and notes differences. "Every country I passed through added something to my life. There were always moments of overcoming challenges. In Spain, I felt an enormous passion for the club and football; in Hungary, I had to manage a locker room with players of different nationalities and cultures. In China, besides the role being different, living and working here is a true life experience - the culture, the language, the food - everything makes this challenge very demanding".

It's worth remembering that Leonel Pontes once imposed a punishment on Cristiano Ronaldo, and he himself confessed it was a difficult moment. "There's a tough story. He had a typical youthful moment, a bad behavior with a Sporting employee. And we punished him. That was a moment that even I found very hard".

In total, Leonel Pontes managed Sporting's main team in five matches. On the first occasion, in the 2009/10 season, the coach replaced Paulo Bento after a series of poor results. In the only game he led the Lions, he drew, two goals each, at Rio Ave's ground. In the 2019/2020 season, Leonel Pontes was chosen to lead the team after Marcel Keizer's dismissal, taking command for four games, without achieving any victory.

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