Apparently, only SOME people abroad and some stiffled voices in home soil are shouting…

Guys, what about gathering all the 5 millions portuguese abroad, make it 15 overall, and try and turn that country into something…?

Carlos, it’s OK. We’re not gonna try and conquer the world, don’t worry. Not that we ever did, but OK, just pick up a History book… Only to win some cups, considering we have the players…

FPF need to take a long hard look at how they select coaches and at the quality of the coaches.

If we here in Canada ever performed in a hockey tournament like PT did at the U20 and the coach made similar statements he would never coach again or be allowed to have anything to do with the sport. There would be a full scale investigation as to how such an incompetent individual was allowed to be in that position in the first place. That would be totally unacceptable.

We (PT) need to set higher standards for our players and they need to stand up, if necessary, and identify useless coaches before they poison another group of players. FPF and all Portuguese need to expect more, and seriously question when things like this happen or we will just keep on making the same mistakes. Which by the way is exactly what is happening.

If like Luis said cronyism is part of the problem them Portuguese need to stop whinning and stand up and rehaul the whole system. Or we will never fulfill our potential. And that would be tragic..

Pedro, if you start raving about the ancient Portuguese spirit, you must consider the old European values as well. I do agree totally with most of what you said, but if you state that bravery is an important goodness today, you must be only corresponding to football, because the comparable value now is the readiness to assume risk.

There might be many kinds of bravery – it’s brave that Zequinha gives an airport interview; it’s brave that the FPF lines up a coach like Couceiro; it’s brave that Figo carries on with the Nerazzurri; it’s brave that I dare to disagree although I’m sure you know better than me.
But if you want the Portuguese people to regain all their proud and bravery, you’ll have back colonialism and an image that is currently fought by Britain and France. I’d rather see men and women all around the world sympathising with PT than have PT looking down on them because its head has vanished in the clouds due to bigwigness.
PT has a naturally pessimistic prevailing mood, and it’s got its reasons for it, since it belongs to the poorest countries in the European Union and has enormous economic problems in many sectors.

Thinking about the idea of Europe as one great nation, I can imagine PT taking a position like California has taken in the USA. The crux of the matter, however, and the reason why I do not fight for this with all my possibilities, is sports: in the USA it doesn’t matter much which state an internationally successful athlete comes from (alright, but you all know that Bush is from Texas – though you can guess that anyway from his looks and acting ).
A unification won’t be possible anyway – we still have Poland, the Czech Republic and Britain preventing anything moving in that direction. Probably a pity – it might be the only way we can keep some of our power in the next century, too.

Being there, and following it like you have since quite some time, you realize PT isn’t exactly just like the others… At least not what one would think, at first glance. Alhtough with a lot of reasonable arguments, like e.g. the small amount of players when compared with “the big boys”, etc, we show an increadible low record for our amazingly high (when compared to the numbers) talent and ability to do a lot with very little.

While everything is seemingly disorganized. While emigrantes aren’t aware of this, they do what “locals” should – push and support rather than finding excuses for defeat and doing nothing about it. OK, we cry… And sell our best players to the big leagues… FCPorto just sold 2 of the best players in action currently in the world – Anderson (at 19 or 20) and Pepe. Quaresma will go soon enough… Sporting sold Nani… And “made” Futre, Figo, C Ronaldo, etc…

Other countries do exactly the opposite and in PT it’s seen as good. With ourselves it’s seen as bad…

PT was once a great country. Still is but everybody forgot it (that we are, not that we were), with people that would not settle for less that victory. No matter the numbers, no matter the conditions: it’s all in History. Fall in the Sea, submit or fight back – and the asnwer was always terrible, it had to be, cos once people would rather “die” than to “live in submission or in fear or in mediocrity”. Yet the genes, the past, it’s all there. It’s just us… Denying ourselves. It our own undoing… Nothing more…

Today, almost at all levels (football is more obvious, cos we’re kinda good at it – but only in the Wings, what a metaphore for such dreamers we all PTs are), it seems everybody is waiting for something to happen, foccusing on what they don’t have rather than on how to get it, etc…

You see, they ALL feel they did their best. Coach, kids, etc… They just didn’t aggregate, come together – this is what Scolari did. Consequently, they never really see the obvious and never come together as they should. They jump in the pitch and it’s all hope and corage. Even sacripihice. The technique is there. The spirit is there. But they eyes are closed, dreaming, wondering, waiting for that miracle, that leader, witout that vision of things happening, essencial – this is what Mourinho brought, wherever he went… Yeah… He had to leave PT…

PT does have good coaches, spread a bit everywhere around the globe. It just seems that a touch of extreme innocense and disbelief strikes them all when it counts… When it’s the PT colours! PT’s National Team has had foerign coaches before. Players as well, only they were – much before the others – portuguese… Not just by passport. Anyway… Although the whinning voices, I believe Scolari is loved in PT – PT’s, like others, have to “kick it a bit”, when they love something… It’s the “love spanking”…

Your recent love, or interest, for that little rectangle by the sea, so mystical, so irracional, so quiet and yet where people scream when they talk, so emotional and yet so “suave”, so obvious at first sight and so secretive at second, so prophane and yet so religious, so Unique and yet so Universal, so amazingly still alive amidst its coulds…,

Is at the very least, Martha, very sweet. Thanks for that. I know that when you leave, you carry it with you. Together with the flavour of that grilled “Dourada” and hopefully the taste of that “Douro”, the oldest wine “regiao demarcada” in the whole world…

A portuguese kiss for you, Martha…

Luis, that’s the spirit. If they (FPF, organizations, etc) don’t take themselves serious, we must make them. PT is 10 million inside + 5 million emigrants… That marron shirt is all the colours, religions, corners of the world that PT stands for. That Spirit that flies around, that was born facing the Sea from above those clifs, inviting you to dare the World to the last border possible. What happened to that brave spirit, that is nothing more that it’s nostalgic doubtfull suffcating shadowy side, today…?

ps – I’ve said it once, learning with Italy would do us no harm – it’s never bad to realize where we are weak and minimize it, where we are strong and maximize it, in one word, STRATEGY! F***, we’re only a few millions and we are old enough not to believe in Santa Claus anymore…

FORCA PT
ES A NOSSA FE

What’s the Portuguese coach-training process? Do coaches here need certification? Is there a training system at all?

And the fear of hiring non-natives to coach national teams is nothing particularly to Portugal. I used to follow England quite closely, and you would not believe the stink that went up when they hired Sven Goran Eriksson (their first non-English national team coach ever, if you can believe that). And, since he didn’t win anything, it’ll probably be another 50 years before the FA can find the never to hire another foreign coach, no matter how well-qualified they are (not to mention how inept the domestic candidates might be).

There’s also a lot of pressure to appoint Portuguese coaches over foreign coaches, which I can understand, but until we start holding coaching professionals accountable for their performances, nothing will change.

I think we need to put as much money and effort into training top notch coaches as we do into training young footballers. An academy dedicated to that purpose perhaps or maybe even sending them abroad to study in the Netherlands or something.

This is the second straight year that an U21 squad with an abundance of talent was eliminated from a tournament. Last time, it was Agostinho Oliveira – another incompetent coach that should never have been given the responsibility of leading a national team.

I know some of these posts sound angry and frustrated, but nothing will change until fans start to demand real accountability – from the players, coaches, and yes even the bureaucrats.

It’s amazing, given the track record you describe, that Couceiro keeps getting jobs, and arguably increasingly high-profile ones at that. It makes me think of the coaching situation in the US — when a guy fails with one MLS club, he knows he’ll get picked up by another one eventually because the pool is so small, and people are afraid to go outside of it to bring in a new face. Is Portugal that way, too?

(And thanks for your patience with all my questions, I’m trying to get a handle on this stuff.)