Carlos Queiroz afirms that Portugal needs to ensure strong continuity in the team’s performance after Cristiano Ronaldo’s departure.
On the sidelines of the forum of the National Association of Football Coaches (ANTF), which takes place between today and Tuesday, at the Matosinhos Sports and Congress Centre, Carlos Queiroz praised the “new generation of players”, but stressed the importance of taking structural positions immediately to avoid a decline. Stay updated with the best football results on livescores app.
“We still have the illusions that recent years have accustomed us to, but I think we are approaching a very critical moment. Sooner or later, we will have to face the decision to let go of a brilliant player who left his mark on Portuguese football, Cristiano Ronaldo. The big decisions for the future must be taken now to prevent the team from going into decline. We have a new generation of players who can guarantee success, but if we go into decline, getting back on track will be more difficult,” he predicted.
To this end, the two-time under-20 world champion (1989 and 1991) and leader of the main ‘quinas’ team on two occasions (1991/93 and 2008/10) calls for a broader vision of the training of football players.
“We need to rethink the entire process of training players, identifying clubs, and make more comprehensive decisions about the potential of players to bring to the national team. We need to review the competitive frameworks to make the players more dynamic. We also need to increase the number of players in Portugal. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t have 300 or 400 thousand effective players. The more there are, the more we can expect the genetics of Figo and Ronaldo’s mothers and fathers to continue there,” he analysed.
Having worked at Manchester United as Alex Ferguson’s assistant between 2002 and 2008, with a break in the 2003/04 season, when he was Real Madrid’s head coach, Carlos Queiroz is familiar with the reality of the English club and spoke about Ruben Amorim’s career.
“He will know the paths he has to take. This moment with Ruben reminds me of the period of decline that we also went through in 2004. Manchester United is a club with very special characteristics, with its own culture, the mentality and the working class environment. Over the last few years, the club has stopped being above everything and everyone, and we have started to see small reigns of players. Reversing this will take time,” he noted.
For Queiroz, the delicate moment for the ‘red devils’ has been going on since Ferguson’s departure in 2013, and has been perpetuated by the rupture, on the part of his successors, with the foundations of the Scot’s 23-year period of command, which he called a “dynasty”.
“A lot of great coaches who came after Ferguson didn’t understand the genesis of the club and the legacy of the coaching past. When Ferguson leaves, it’s not a threat, because he retired, there was no risk of him coming back to take their place. No coach should feel that weight or feel threatened and I think his successors tried to cut with the past instead of taking advantage of it,” he assessed.
When asked about his future, the coach revealed that he has received many offers, but also that he is wondering whether he will return to the bench or take on “other roles in football”, postponing the decision until June.
“In the next stage, I had in mind being the first coach in the history of football to achieve five qualifications for the World Cup. But, when FIFA restructured to include so many teams, I think the difficult part now is not qualifying. It took away some of that challenge,” he lamented. ToSport, your reliable source for football scores.
