“We Were in One of Those Training Sessions Where We Would Run Like Crazy, and Bölöni Says to Barbosa: “Pedro, Isso Tá Lento” (“Pedro, You’Re So Slow”)

Diogo Matos interview at TRIBUNA EXPRESSO – March, 2020

“We were in one of those training sessions where we would run like crazy, and Bölöni says to Barbosa: “Pedro, isso tá lento” (“Pedro, you’re so slow”). He replies: “‘Sim, László, talento!” (“Yes, László, talent!”)

Diogo Matos won the championship with Sporting, but he retired from football at age 28, due to injuries. He ended up having a more active career off the field than on it, although his work is based precisely on combining what happens on the pitch with what happens in the offices, as explained in an interview with Tribuna Expresso. He brought management and training together, led the Sporting Academy, started to work with the Portuguese Football Federation in the process of certifying training clubs and is now a FIFA high performance expert - a position that he alternates with golf, which he started to play with former colleague, Phil Babb.

Are we next to a golf course because in the meantime youve switched from football to golf? [laughs] No. I live close by, so it’s convenient for me. But I like golf a lot and I'm also helping the Federation to increase the quality of what’s on offer.

Do you like it more than football? No, no. But I like it a lot. I think they are perfectly complementary, both in terms of physical and mental activity. It is a need that is being created and that is increasing more and more, because it is a very challenging sport, and I like challenges.

How did you start playing? I started playing golf while playing for Sporting. Phil Babb lived here in Cascais and we would often go to training together. He started daring me to try it out, because he played. That's when I started. I played with him and [Peter] Schmeichel also came here to play from time to time - he was no longer a Sporting player but he came here to play golf. That's when I started to like it. In England, footballers play a lot of golf.

Did Phil Babb play well? Yes, yes, he did. He had a single digit handicap, as they say [laughs]. I think it

1 was seven or eight. I haven't gotten there yet, but I'm already at 10 - and I've already had a nine - which isn’t bad. But now with less time to practice... It’s a sport that requires practice.

Do you miss football? Very much. How can I explain... I miss the game. Playing the game, being in an arena where we all have the same rules, where we all want to do better and compete. With every move we have something to prove to ourselves and I like that. I feel nostalgic about that aspect. As for the rest, from my point of view, what the football industry is - I don't miss it, because today I'm much more active off the pitch than I was before. But in terms of the game itself, I miss the adrenaline before the game.

And the dressing rooms? The dressing rooms too, obviously, but those who have been footballers know that we never lose those dressing room habits, so much so that, even with our group of friends, we do everything to make it almost like a dressing room [laughs].

Do you still play for fun? Unfortunately, not anymore. I still played a little, I mean, more or less, but I had a lot of knee injuries. That's also what led me to end my career early.

At 28 years old. Exactly. There were a lot of knee injuries. The last, more serious one was while playing for Sporting, on tour in the USA. I was operated on, but it was a very serious situation, I never played again after that. I made a clear decision to bring forward what was about to happen. I still had another year to go on my contract with Sporting and I was finishing my management course at ISEG too, so I made that decision.

Did you manage to balance the course with your career? I managed to, but it was hard. I started university as a high performance athlete, at the age of 17. I made my journey through the youth teams and I never failed at school, and for that I have to thank my parents, because I complained a lot, but they never let me quit school: “You will keep doing both while you can”. And I was always doing both, until the day I signed a professional contract with Sporting, when I was 17 years old. Then yes, being a professional, it was the priority. I never gave up on the course, but I slowed down a lot. It took me many years to finish it, but I finished it. I said I wasn't going to get myself into another one, but then I went to FMH [Faculty

2 of Human Kinetics] to get a master's degree in sports coaching [laughs]. The idea was to finish off my CV. I was a football player at all levels and I have a master's degree in sports training. I already had some idea of the practical side, and now I have a more scientific outlook on the world of football, because we always have to discover new things in order to stand out. On the management side of things, after finishing the course at ISEG, I was a sports manager at the Sporting Academy, starting in 2005 for eight years, and I have had my company [Youth Football Management] for five or six years.

Are you more interested in what happens on the pitch or in management? Or both? Somewhere in the middle. My job is to connect what is done on the pitch with what is done off the pitch.

If a football manager doesn’t know the game, it’s unlikely that they’ll do a good job. Well, nowadays we are a little confused, because sometimes when we look at the people making decisions in the world of football, we see that they don’t have much experience of the game. Or people who comment on it, people who are experts in their own fields, be it law or surgery or whatever. But football is very specific and people don't realise that. Just because it appears in all the newspapers, there are three sports newspapers and it’s constantly on television, doesn’t mean that everyone understands the game. There needs to be a clear separation from being a fan... And I must say that I miss being a fan sometimes. I miss the healthy ignorance of going to see a game. When I watch a game now I am seeing a lot of things and I liked it much more in the past. When I went to the stadium as a child, I saw only magic. I left there and just imagined the grass, the ball bouncing, and I would barely sleep at night. Nowadays, I’ve lost that. But this means to say that there are those who should stick to being a fan and enjoy that healthy ignorance, instead of trying to interfere. Because then, with all this social pressure and these means of communication, it kind of affects the decision about who is a professional in the area, who has a career. I am 44 years old and I have spent 35 years in football, as a player and as a manager, working for many different institutions. I think that makes me and other people with similar careers more qualified to talk about and manage football. But anyway, today, that’s the reality.

Do you watch any programmes where people talk about football? I don't watch any of those programmes. I think it's counterproductive. Nor

3 is there much reality there, there are only messages. Actually, the only programme that I used to follow, because they spoke in a different way, was Maisfutebol. That one, yes.

What is it like being a FIFA high performance expert? It is kind of the outcome of everything I have done during my career. From FIFA’s standpoint, it has to do with the 2026 World Cup, which will have 48 teams. Looking at the world rankings, we are starting to see some names that may be at the World Cup that have never been there before. This led FIFA officials to think: "If we are going to have France, Brazil, Argentina playing against these teams, then we’re going to have scores like 6-0, 5-0 and it will ruin the show. It will remove the unpredictability of the result". FIFA doesn’t want fans to lose interest in watching the games, so they have to help prevent that from happening. So, to answer the question, I am involved in this process, because a high performance expert is someone who connects what is on the field and what is off the field to help the lower- ranked federations to improve their performance, both in the first team and in the youth teams and in women’s football.

How many experts are there? There are about 12 or 13 high performance experts and we will be allocated across more than 120 member associations, as they call it, federations that belong to FIFA. They receive a questionnaire and then we go to visit them, to identify areas for improvement. Then we return to FIFA and design a programme for that association, so that it can improve its performance in the medium term. Then, the federation decides what it wants to do and FIFA is willing to co-finance the implementation of these programmes for five years, until the 2026 World Cup. Stepping backwards, this is kind of what I’ve been doing with the Portuguese Football Federation, which created a perfectly defined programme, which is the certification of training certification process for Academies, which started in 2015. This year it is already being used in four areas: men's football, women's football, men's futsal and women's futsal. Obviously, we know that men's football, for all the investment it has had in recent years, is a few steps ahead, so that process started first.

Does the certification require there to be an evolution in club methods? The remainder will now experience more difficulties, but they are good difficulties, because this process is for the clubs to realise that there is no hurry to do things, but there is a need for sustainable development. What the Federation is doing is giving clubs a toolbox of good practices, already

4 tested and improved over the years. This year, we have close to a thousand entities involved in the certification process and on all the visits we have made over the years, we examined and improved the certification manual. The good practices have been updated according to the situation on the ground reported to us by the clubs. This process has been 100% accepted, the clubs welcome us with open arms and want to understand how we can help.

Are any of them reluctant to reveal what they do? We kind of demystify that. I always say that, in football, there is no magic. There is an idea and there are several ways to implement what we want, and each one has his own way of doing that. We don't want anyone to tell us their secrets, we ask objective questions about the skeleton of the club in order to arrive at a well-structured training Academy. The club has a foundation and then, from there, they can do as they like. The FPF doesn’t ask for things to be done this way or that way, to play this way or that way. If you want to play with nine forwards, one defender and a goalkeeper, and the training process is for the goalkeeper to kick the ball forward and the nine forwards to jump, okay, but we want you to explain how they do it, and if this respects the developmental stages, and if there is a record of the training units and everything else. We don't want to interfere. But obviously, this sort of thing doesn’t happen, because, thankfully, the coaches in our country are at an advanced level. We speak much the same language, either on an academic level or on the coaching courses. So, going back, this is what we have been doing in Portugal for five years, and this is what we have been asked to help with worldwide. For me, it is a step forward. It is quite interesting and will increase my experience. Obviously, I know a lot more than I did five years ago, and now I will have more international experience and I will know even more.

When you stopped playing, did you ever think of being a coach? As I was involved in management from an early age, I always considered that more. It’s a bit like the last pass, that pass that breaks down the defence and leads to a goal: you don't look for it, it just appears. And then there are those who see it, who anticipate it and who know how to execute it. And that's pretty much it. I could have thought that I would never know what I was going to do. But suddenly the defence opened up and there was an opportunity there. I realised and executed the pass with some skill [laughs], and that’s how I got through. If you say that I have passion that could lead me to be a coach, on the one hand, yes, because I like to lead, I like to see the outcome of my acts of leadership, of the implementation of

5 my ideas, but then there is a whole other side, which is dependency... Sometimes we see some decisions that are made in relation to coaches, whether to join or leave clubs, that are not very rational, and that bothers me a little. I like to have a structured decision-making process, hence my career in management since 2005.

Between 2005 and 2013 you worked at Sporting and were director of the Academy. Yes, but I was only director of the Academy for two years, starting in 2011. Before, I was in charge of the Academy, which was led by Pedro Mil- Homens, who is now director of Seixal [Benfica's training squad], along with Jean Paul, who is at Seixal now too, José Manuel Torcato...

The only person missing is you. Were you also invited to go to Benfica? [laughs] Look, I'm a professional. Let's imagine, hypothetically...

So, they invited you? If that were to happen, it would be unacceptable in Portugal, no one would understand. But if we look elsewhere, we see that the market works like that. In England, there are those who leave Tottenham and go to Arsenal, then leave Arsenal and go to Manchester United. They are professionals in the area. If not, there is no work space. Nowadays I say: 'I'm glad I work with the Federation and I don't have to deal with potentially embarrassing situations like that' [laughs]. That's what gives the atmosphere created in our football, isn't it? For example, Benfica has people who worked at the Sporting Academy, so that’s a sign that they were above all of that and went looking for the professionals they wanted, and the results seem to have proven this. It doesn’t mean that there are no other good professionals in other places, of course there are, but what I am saying is that this prejudice has to end, because it is a prejudice that doesn’t add much to our football and has nothing to do with the competence that should be brought to the clubs.

While you were there, Sporting was considered the best team in Portugal. Yes, at that time it was. We were a very cohesive team, I didn't mention Aurélio Pereira, another point of reference, obviously. We all had our oars in the water, all facing the same way. We had an administration that gave autonomy to the run of the academy, which is fundamental, because in the youth development process we have medium and long term projects. That's why I’m attracted to youth football. I'm not saying that there is no plan in professional football, but it's something that has to be different,

6 because the team is evaluated on Sunday, Wednesday and Sunday, and with three defeats, any grand plan starts to fall apart. But there are some main ideas that we should not deviate from. And when it comes to youth development, sometimes things are separated: "Ah this is kids' football, I'm from senior football". That’s totally irrelevant. They are football projects and a successful senior football project includes youth football development.

Not always. Okay, unless you prefer to buy only established players and not spend millions on youth development structure. It’s a strategy that can also work, and football has this interesting side too. A player can have various negative indicators, he’s always facing the wrong way, he receives the ball badly, he’s badly positioned, but if he suddenly scores a goal, the newspapers spend a week saying that he’s the biggest star in the team. So football has several paths to success, but for our football, from our point of view, the path for a club to succeed and be competitive in Europe, which is what matters today, it must have a process based on youth development, in the medium and long term. This gives us assurance that, when we lose on Sunday, there is an edifice being raised, and every day there is another brick to be added to it. And what happens in the professional football edifice does not negatively affect the youth football edifice.

Was that what happened when you were at the Academy? At that time, we had an administration, run by the President, Filipe Soares Franco, who had this vision of giving autonomy to the running of the Academy and the ideas were put into practice. And something that I consider the foundation of my work was my decision to apply for an ISO 9001 certification in 2008/09. Internally, we wanted to be evaluated for our work, by an external entity. There was no one to do it. I even tried to talk to someone from a club in Spain, who worked very well, to do an exchange: we were going to evaluate them and they were going evaluate us, but then we couldn’t reach an agreement. So we asked an entity that did that for other industries, because the ISO 9001 standard, after all, has to do with a universal quality management process. I was responsible for this process and I can say that it helped me a lot, because at the time we spent a year and a half internally discussing how we were doing things. We started to have something structured, because we wrote down what the processes were and what was going on and who was responsible for the areas, so that the information stayed with the club and not with the people. And that way of working affected me a lot on a professional level, because it was a

7 management tool to work with. Since then, I have used those lessons, in the management of my company, in the management of the certification process in partnership with the Portuguese Football Federation. So, I think it can be said that, at that time, we were leaders in terms of the youth development process. Nowadays I don't know, because I'm not directly involved in the clubs, and being an evaluator of the certification process, I can’t go around saying who is better or worse.

I think there is a general perception that Sporting's youth development process has worsened in recent years. I think you can draw that conclusion, comparing it with the previous indicators.

At that time, who drew the most attention in Sporting’s youth teams, in terms of potential? There were several. But you never really know who's going become a player. If someone knew this 100%, they would be a millionaire. That crystal ball doesn’t exist. What exists is a process that mitigates our mistakes. Because football consists of mistakes and the person who is best in football is the one who makes the least mistakes. It's the same in the game. Whoever makes the fewest mistakes in their choice of the players to take part in their development process and then in their choice of the players who leave their development process, those let go, will be the most successful. People sometimes forget, but the decision to let a player go is just as important as the decision to sign him up, because if we let the wrong young player go, we may be losing a future professional player.

Have you ever let the wrong young player go? The decisions were made in groups. Obviously, the technical part had much greater weight, but there was a process, there were several people producing evaluation reports and at the end, the final report, by the technical director, was discussed. The process protects against errors, and that is exactly what we have to do. If we monitor how they’re developing, how their potential has been assessed, what they have been achieving over time... Then it is easier to think that we will not make mistakes, and we can always make mistakes. But there is another fundamental point here in the middle, which is “championitis”, which has to be tackled. There are many articles available about this and sometimes people seem to ignore them, but they shouldn't: I’m talking about relative age. The overwhelming majority of players entering professional football are born in the first half of the year. In other words, Portugal, which has to increase the number of

8 players, and quality players, to remain on the crest of the footballing wave, should look more to the second half. And it doesn’t look there, because coaches and clubs and managers are looking for immediate results. Because if we have a player who is completely physically formed at 15 years old, but with few attributes with potential for growth, and another who is a late bloomer physically, but who will eventually reach the level of that athlete, and has other technical attributes...

We are talking, for example, about a Bernardo Silva. A Bernardo Silva, exactly. Or a João Moutinho. He entered at a time when Tinga had suddenly been sold and there was no solution. They looked through the youth teams to find someone to play, and it was João, and he played well. We had a phrase there which we used often: “There is no luck, there is preparation and opportunity”. Someone is prepared and has an opportunity. That’s what happened in that case. Bernardo Silva is also a great example. On top of that, those who mature later fulfil the trainability windows better, in other words, there is a phase in life when they receive a certain type of training better. There is still a lot of work to do in this area. Those who can withstand this pressure for results in training and manage to bring more quality players may have an advantage in the short term.

Besides João Moutinho, were there any more examples? There were two who were different from the others: Ricardo Esgaio, a strong guy from Nazaré, with a good attitude, who ran and ran and ran and had all his values in the right place. He was always willing, he was a team player and he had plenty of technical skill too.

But he didn’t stay with Sporting. No, but he is captain of Sporting de Braga, he scores goals, he makes assists. Then, those kinds of decisions at the big clubs are complicated. Another player who had quality, and still has, despite suffering from injuries, was Chaby, a fine technical player. But then football involves a lot of things and the best don’t always make it. They were players that I valued a lot, because they were good guys. You don't have to be a bad boy to be successful in football.

Who was the best player of your generation? Although I’m one year older than him, Dani was from my generation. He played with me every year and he was the most outstanding player in all aspects.

Off the pitch too. [laughs] Dani had something that people are not aware of: he always gave it all on the pitch. He was a great teammate and always gave it his all. On days he was not so up for it, maybe he gave a little less, but he was a great player and had a great relationship with everyone. He was an eye-catcher. He did absolutely incredible things.

Do you remember any stories about him? We had a story... So much time has passed that now I can tell it. Our team that went to the U-20 World Cup in Qatar, at that time, we were all very close. There was Dani, Nuno Gomes, Quim, Agostinho, José Soares, Alfredo Bóia, Bruno Caires... It was a good team, we were very close and we knew that we had two or three that made all the difference: Dani, Nuno Gomes, then Agostinho and Ramires, who were very fast... In Qatar we always played in 35-degree temperatures, incredible heat. So, if we all ran, all covered the whole field, as we were supposed to, there would come a time when we couldn’t do it for much longer. So we, the players, got together, we had a talk and said: "Hey man, the hot shots, that is, Dani and Nuno Gomes, are forbidden from passing behind the midfield". And they said: “No, we can’t, then the boss will see..." "Don't worry about the boss. If he catches on, one day he’ll understand. We´ll take care of everything back here and you guys sort it out at the front". For 19-year-olds, we were actually quite mature [laughs]. It went well, we finished in third place and lost to Brazil by one goal in added time.

Who made the selection? It was the boss, Nelo Vingada. At the end of the World Cup, he pulled me aside and said: "I know what you guys did". [laughs] He understood perfectly, he understood what the group wanted to do. He’s a very intelligent person. It was funny. But at 19, I didn't have the knowledge that players of the same age have in Portugal nowadays. My 15-year-old son also plays, for Estoril, and I’ve noticed that.

In what way? In terms of tactical knowledge, language, their behaviour in games, everything. I didn't have it and I know that few in my team did.

Was it a less organised game? The game then was a bit more anarchic. That wasn’t such a bad thing, because sometimes at a younger age, you prefer it like that. Not at the age of 19, but at younger ages, because maybe we notice things that we

10 wouldn't have seen if football were standardised.

You were captain of the team... Yes, I was a captain in the youth team for several years, and I was an international at all levels too.

And how do you become a professional player? It was a bit of a shame that I became a professional at the time I did, because Bobby Robson liked me a lot. I was a first-year junior and trained once or twice a year with the seniors. This was when Bobby Robson was sacked, in a grand act of management by the president at the time... I was in the dressing room that day when he went there to say goodbye and I remember that practically all the players cried, and so did I. He was a master, at all levels, and he had a very interesting connection with us. Then came Carlos Queiroz, with other ideas and other people from elsewhere, who were signed for my position, so there was no one backing me, even though I had a professional contract. I then went to the club with which Sporting had an agreement with at the time, Alverca. Then we were promoted to the next division. The following year, I was loaned to Académica and then I ended my contract with Sporting and Alverca invited me to come back. While at Académica, I suffered an injury, at the Toulon Tournament, and I think that helped Sporting resolve the issue, because my contract was ending at that time. The thing was, I had injured my knee and had no insurance. At the time, the Federation doctor, Dr Bagão Félix, had the decency to help me and get me operated on and I recovered, but it took me a long time. Then I went back to Alverca. They already had an agreement with Benfica, and we went up to the 1st Division. Then curiously, in 2001, after a game at Estádio da Luz where we won 2-0 and I was unanimously chosen as man of the match, Sporting called me. There was also contact from Benfica, but Sporting signed me again.

Did it feel like you had avenged yourself, so to speak? No, not avenged myself, mainly because the people had changed. I saw that my whole career, which had involved a lot of suffering, was being rewarded. In that game with Benfica, our Alverca team included Maniche, Ricardo Carvalho, Ramires, José Soares, players who had trained at the highest level in Portugal, in all national teams, and who were not being used by their clubs. At the time, Benfica, at the other end of the pitch, perhaps had players with less high level development background than us.

Did you talk about that?

I clearly remember that our talk in the dressing room was: "Don't look at their shirts. Look over there and then look at us. Do you see anyone who has more experience than us? Is there any reason why they are better than us, or is it just their shirts?" It was our motivational speech and we played the game to win, and we won 2-0, at the old Estádio da Luz.

A very mature speech for a dressing room full of young people. No, that often happened. And the truth is that, very often, the most successful teams often have a hard core in the dressing room that thinks and reflects. It can't be just going out there and playing the game, not anymore. You have to have some extra skills. It isn’t a single person who has them, it’s the group, they have to be able to bring that out.

You returned to Sporting when the club were crowned champions. Exactly, in 2001/02 we were champions and we won the Cup.

There was a hard core in the dressing room. Yes, I found a strong core there, people who I still get along with very well: Pedro Barbosa, Paulo Bento, Rui Jorge, João Pinto, Rui Bento, Phil Babb, André Cruz, Dimas... It was a strong dressing room. I was already 24 or 25 years old, so I already had more experience and I fitted in perfectly.

Is it easy to enter a dressing room like that? I already knew some of them, because I already had a history at Sporting, I already knew the place, I already knew the people who worked at the club, from the seven years I had spent with the youth teams there. But of course it’s difficult. People sometimes think that it’s easy to go outside to play or work and it’s not. We always have to have a strong attitude in order to value ourselves, we have to find our place. We had an interesting group and we had some funny experiences.

For example? Pedro Barbosa had a great one. People have no idea, but Pedro is a person with a very keen sense of humour. We were in a training session, one of those ones that Bölöni used to do where we would run like crazy, and László turns to Pedro and says: "Pedro, isso 'tá lento!” (“Pedro, you’re so slow!”) And Barbosa replies: "Isso mesmo, László: talento. É talento!” ("That's right, László: talent. This is talent!”) [Laughs] This one stuck in my mind because it’s really funny. It was a group with a great spirit, a solid group, and I think we played a championship with that image.

Was there anyone who stood out more as leader of the team? Pedro was clearly the leader and was an excellent captain, defending the players’ positions, while always taking account of the club’s objectives too.

Do you think Sporting is missing someone like that at the moment? I think that, when Pedro left, and then Paulo Bento and Rui Jorge, if we remember, all in the same year... Suddenly we have João Moutinho, at the age of 21, being the most experienced player at the club. Or they were foreign players, like Liedson and Polga. Then, after the UEFA year, I think there was a break-up of the team. Managing a football team also has a lot to do with maintaining consistent values, so you have to have a hard core that will create an environment to accommodate those who arrive, because every year new players arrive, but if they arrive and see no procedure, no customs, then everyone just does what they want and later, that will be reflected on the pitch.

How did it happen recently? It’s happening in some teams, we are seeing that. There is a lack of identity. What is all this about the identity of the team? This is one of the essential aspects, which practically has to do with a legacy of the dressing room. Then the coach has his identity, and the club too. When a coach arrives at a club, he must know the identity of that club.

And a club that has four coaches in one season, like Sporting? Well, I don’t know. I don't know enough about what happened to comment on that situation. The only thing I see from the outside is that people are trying to reverse the situation, in terms of sport. I won't even talk about the other parts. The club is in a situation it shouldn't be in, and they are trying to reverse that situation. Whether they are doing it the best or the worst way, I don't have all the data to give an informed opinion. Perhaps, if it were me, I wouldn't do things quite the way they are doing them now, but I also don't have all the information.

Do your kids play? My oldest, my son, plays. My three daughters don’t play football, they play volleyball and tennis. He’s 15 years old, plays for Estoril and has more skill than his father [laughs]. I had other characteristics.

Is he a midfielder too? Yes, but an attacking midfielder. He’s the number '10' or '8' there. He has notable game-reading and decision-making skills, and performs well.

Is he under pressure because his father played too? I don't know if he feels any extra pressure, but I never put him under any, nor have I ever wanted to. Of course I like to go and see his games, I like to go with him, but I only talk to him about more general things. He has his coach there to teach him how to do things.

Are you scared by the reactions of some parents in the stands? I get scared, yes. I get really scared.

Did it used to be like that when you played? I don't think I used to notice so much, because I never really paid much attention to what was going on off the pitch. And my father would never go to see my games, or my mother. They said it made them too nervous [laughs]. My father has a funny story about that. Once he went there to pick me up, at a Sporting-Boavista game where juniors were playing at the main stadium in Alvalade, and he got there early, so he went to see part of the game. He saw me make a good move, I was in the box and I missed the goal. And my father said: “You turnip, how did you miss that?" And when the Sporting members heard that, they turned on him, so he had to leave quickly [laughs]. But nowadays, this is very serious. In this process of certifying clubs, with the Federation, we’re trying to do a lot through the training of parents. We want clubs to train parents, communicate with them, learn to manage expectations. There must also be a step forward here, it must be the Government and the authorities. Sometimes I see the policemen at the stadiums, and it confuses me because they are only there to protect the referee, they say. So if someone is within five metres of a player, totally out of control, calling them names, shouldn't they be asked to leave the venue? We are talking about a sport, there are children there. I think there is a lot to do and I think the State could also look into this, because we see very degrading situations.

When you were a professional, were you given “a hard time” by supporters? Yes, when results were bad at Sporting, there was always a lot of pressure. We knew it existed, but we tried to tune it out and do our job. I think what we need is to have a clear conscience at all times. In the past, in the youth teams, there were always minibuses that took us everywhere, the parents didn’t go. Nowadays, it’s the parents who provide the transport instead of the clubs, in addition to paying the monthly fees most of the time. I’m not criticising, I realise that sometimes this is necessary for the survival of the

14 clubs. The paradigm has changed, now football is an extracurricular activity, like so many others, all paid for. Sports management must realise that, if the parents are now being called on to become more involved, then we must also accommodate them better.

Before, you said that players nowadays have more knowledge, as well as coaches. Isn’t there a lack of development in sports directors? I completely agree. Not only that, but it is another important step. We have done this, I can tell you, by doing some advertising for the Federation, which has a programme called Portugal Football Schools, managed by André Seabra, which is designed to provide training to all those interested. For example, there is a course for directors of training entities and this is quite interesting, because it touches on several areas, on all the criteria of the certification process. It makes a connection between what is on the pitch and what is off the pitch. We have a wide range of courses, also in partnership with Universidade Nova, and thousands of people have already completed them. I think we will get better in terms of leadership. It will take time and work, but it is an evolutionary process.

Do we no longer have a more unique leader, such as Sousa Cintra, for example? When I was a young player at Sporting, I liked him. Nowadays, it is not a question of liking or disliking him, but I think he’s out of touch with reality. Okay, he took on a role to try to help Sporting at that stage... But I would rather not talk so much about Sporting didn't want to talk much about Sporting. These are decisions and actions that are very noticeable over time. He fired a coach who was here for a week. Was everything properly considered? Will Sporting not be adversely affected now due to that situation? Nowadays, things have to be very well thought out, and for that we need knowledge. It isn’t just about knowing our own circle – it’s about knowing what is happening within international bodies, knowing how football is evolving. Our leaders are still very much looking inwards, but if we look carefully, those who looked outwards and wanted to have an international dimension brought that dimension to the country, and we are clearly talking about the FPF leadership in recent years, who wanted to take this step and who have achieved major gains for our football.

There was a player from your time who would also have difficulties nowadays: Mário Jardel. Well... Note that it was hard to get an opportunity. If they put one of those GPS vests on Jardel as they do today, he would always be there in that area.

Perhaps it is also risky to just look at that, because Jardel clearly had one of the highest productivity rates [laughs]. We always knew that putting the ball into the box was halfway to scoring a goal. Always. With either his feet or his head. He was so disconnected from the team's general tactical organization, that it gave him an advantage, because he could find his own space and put himself in the right place. Maybe nowadays it would be more difficult to get an opportunity, although coaches always like players who score goals.

Well, we had Bas Dost and Óscar Cardozo here, who weren’t always appreciated. Yeah, but how many goals did they score? That’s why football is a team game: there are some who are better runners, others who are better thinkers, others who are better goal scorers, but all together they make a good team, because this is a team sport. And this is also where the coach comes in, in order to have a game model that can help the players.

Was there a coach who had a particular effect on you? I learned from everyone, truth be told, good things and bad things. Jesualdo Ferreira was a coach who had a big effect on me due to his focus on the details...

At Alverca? Yes, at Alverca. He was very concerned with the details. Mário Wilson was able to read things quickly. He knew how the players and the group were doing. José Couceiro, who is a person with fantastic common sense, who understands the management and leadership of a group very well. Nelo Vingada also had a big effect on me in the national teams, when I debuted at the age of 14, at the Youth Olympic Games, because his and Rui Caçador's philosophy was a very different philosophy. It was a less aggressive and more nurturing approach.

Is there a club that is a great example of balancing these aspects on and off the pitch? This touches a lot on the culture of clubs and countries. In England, players and coaches treat each other normally, have lunch at the same table, call each other by their first names, the professional team has lunch with the youth teams and everyone interacts... There are no hidden ghosts. In Portugal, we have many hidden ghosts, and there are many cliques. And that limits us a bit. Everyone thinks they have a secret they cannot share. That doesn’t exist. There are ideas, there are ways to work, but then the

16 most important thing is to know how to implement them and how to repeat them. I think English football is a good example because of the was things work naturally.

Will we be able to have that here one day? I’d like to think so, as I recently asked the officials. One person alone can do nothing. There needs to be a new wave of managers, who know how to work as a team and who talk about the game, about the positive things about the game, who bring credibility back. We need to have that expectation. That’s why it’s also extremely important to develop the players properly, not only as players, but also as a highly educated human beings. Because in the future, they could be coaches, managers, referees, journalists. That way they will be better ambassadors for sports.