selective Portugal, Fernando SantosThe Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) announced that he was leaving his post on Thursday, following the elimination of “quinas” in the quarter-finals of the World Cup held in Qatar and an argument with Cristiano Ronaldo.
Santos has a contract until 2024. thus leaving the position after eight years, more than any other coach on the Portuguese team. According to the memo, the Portuguese federation and Santos “agreed to end the highly successful journey that started in September 2014” and realized this “after one of the best performances in the history of the national team in the final stages of the World Cup”. ,” is “the right time to start a new cycle”.
The organization, which will now start the process of selecting the next coach, said: “FPF thanks Fernando Santos and his technical team for their service over the past eight-odd years and believes this gratitude goes on behalf of Portugal as well.”
His surprise elimination (1-0) against Morocco marked the end of a tense World Cup for Portugal. and the relationship between Santos and ‘quinas’ captain Cristiano Ronaldo was marked.
The crack showed his displeasure by being replaced during a group stage match. and Santos then decided Do not exclude him from the squad in the next matches..
In the fight against Morocco, he returned to the captain only at the beginning of the second half when the scoreboard announced that Portugal had been eliminated.
Santos, 68, took over the Portuguese national team in 2014, replacing Paulo Bento.
In 2016, he won the European Championship in France, the first major trophy in the history of the Portuguese national team.and in 2019 another trophy was added to the Portuguese showcases Winning the first edition of the League of Nations.
In addition to the quarter-finals in QatarPortugal were eliminated in the round of 16 at the 2018 World Cup held in Russia and in the championship defense at Euro 2020.He had his worst performance in the European championship. In total, Santos is the Portuguese coach with the longest tenure (8 years), the most matches (109) and the most wins (68).
Despite the statistics, Portugal’s style of play at the time was often criticized as being conservative and defensive.and sometimes it depends too much on the individual plays of its stars, especially Cristiano.
An engineer by profession, Fernando Santos (Lisbon, 1954) split his coaching career between Portugal and Greece. He coached the ‘big three’ (Porto, Sporting and Benfica) in Portugal and won the League in 1998/1999.The only five-time title in Portuguese history to earn him the nickname “penta engineer”.
He also played for Greek football clubs AEK, PAOK and Panathinaikos, and for the Greek national team, which he took to the 2012 Euro Cup and the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, where he managed to reach the quarter-finals and eighth place. .end, respectively.
Lately He was in the news because of the problems with the Portuguese Treasury. regarding the salary that he receives selectively.