José Peseiro

José Peseiro

File:JosePeseiro.jpg
Personal information
Full name	José Vítor dos Santos Peseteiro
Date of birth	(1960-04-04) 4 April 1960
Place of birth	Coruche, Portugal
Team information
Current team	Al Ahly SC (manager)
Managerial career
Years	Team
1992–1994	União de Santarém
1994–1996	União de Montemor
1996–1999	Oriental F.C
1999–2003	Nacional Madeira
2003–2004	Real Madrid (assistant)
2004–2005	Sporting CP
2006–2007	Al Hilal
2007–2008	Panathinaikos
2008	Rapid Bucureşti
2009–2011	Saudi Arabia
2012–2013	Braga
2013–2015	Al-Wahda
2015–	Al Ahly SC

José Vítor dos Santos Peseiro (born 4 April 1960) is a Portuguese football manager in charge of Al Ahly in Egyptian Premier League. He most notably served as an assistant for Carlos Queiroz during his Real Madrid tenure from 2003 to 2004 and as a manager for Sporting CP where he took the club to the 2005 UEFA Cup Final which Sporting lost to CSKA Moscow, 3–1.

Career

Beginnings

A graduate of the same football managing course as José Mourinho, Peseiro's career as manager started earlier, in the 1992–93 season for a local club, União de Santarém. After two seasons there, followed by two more in União de Montemor and three in Oriental up to 1999, when he moved to CD Nacional.

In the Madeira Islands club, he started to develop, winning the Portuguese Second Division and, two seasons later, finishing second in the Liga de Honra thus climbing to the top division. Finishing eleventh and completing his objective of securing the team in the top division, he was picked by Carlos Queiroz as first assistant in Real Madrid for the 2003–04 season. However, as things went badly for the Madrid side, Queiroz was given the sack and returned to his assistant position in Manchester United, and Peseiro was invited to Sporting Clube de Portugal.

Sporting

Peseiro arrived at a time of change in Portuguese football, after Mourinho and the FC Porto team that had dominated the league and European competitions in the past two seasons was disbanded. The fans had high expectations for Peseiro, who they hoped could help the team recapture the title. A poor season start (with three defeats and two draws running up to week 9) was followed by a poor rest of season, with a total of 61 points. However, the equally mediocre seasons of both Porto and champions S.L. Benfica allowed the team to fight for the league title until the second to last matchday (Sporting was actually leading at the start of it), when Sporting lost to Benfica due to a last minute controversial goal by Luisão against Ricardo.

The UEFA Cup run, however, was much more positive – finishing third in the group stage, Sporting knocked out Feyenoord, Middlesbrough, Newcastle United, as a last-minute in overtime header by Miguel Garcia put Sporting ahead of AZ Alkmaar in the semi-finals, played at the Alkmaarder Hout. Further motivated by the possibility of lifting the cup in their own ground, the Estádio José Alvalade, Sporting faced CSKA Moscow (who knocked out Benfica earlier in the competition and was previously in the FC Porto's UEFA Champions League group stage). A goal by Rogério put the team ahead until the half time, but in the second half the Russian team turned the tide against Sporting, who was shell-shocked after the first goal by Aleksei Berezutskiy and allowed a second by Yuri Zhirkov. In a dramatic turn of events, Rogério sent what looked a sure equaliser to the far post, and in the counter-attack Vágner Love closed the scoreline against an hopeless Ricardo.

The start of the 2005–06 season was little less of catastrophic, losing the Champions League qualification to Udinese, and then being knocked out of the UEFA Cup by Halmstads BK in the Alvalade XXI. While the league started well for Sporting, a first defeat against Nacional was followed by a strained victory against Vitória FC, and after losing to Halmstads the team suffered a beating at the hands of recently promoted FC Paços de Ferreira. On 16 October, a 0–1 defeat against Académica de Coimbra sank Sporting into 7th place, and two days later, team president António Dias da Cunha accepted his resignation.

During his tenure with Sporting, the team's style was of a possession football, with long sequences of quick passing in a midfield lead by Fábio Rochemback, and seconded by João Moutinho. With the top players at the start, Sporting was usually quite dominating, winning games fairly easily. However, Peseiro, in a misguided attempt of squad rotation, failed to keep a steady base in the team by frequently swapping out up to 5 players from game to game. This led to a noticeable drop in the team's concentration, thus resulting in frustrating draws or losses after brilliant performances. As an illustration of this, Fábio Rochemback was once caught on camera telling insults after being subbed out. Rochemback was then transferred to Middlesbrough FC, where he appeared in the 2006 UEFA Cup final.

Managing in Eastern Europe and Saudi Arabia

For the 2007/08 season, he was at the helm of the Greek side Panathinaikos but after failing to win the Greek championship and a 4-0 defeat from archrival Olympiakos, he was forced to resign following protests by fans.

In June 2008 he signed a three year contract with Romanian football club FC Rapid Bucureşti. As of the 2008–2009 season, Peseiro was sent to the stand twice for kicking the ball away and participating in a scandal that occurred between Rapid and CFR Cluj while in a derby.

On October 2, 2008 Rapid was knocked out from UEFA Cup by the German club Wolfsburg and Peseiro was sacked and then reinstated a few days later. He eventually resigned from Rapid on 12 January 2009, after failing to agree with on new contract conditions.

He coached Saudi Arabia after replacing Nasser Al-Johar. As new national team coach for Saudi Arabia he was given the mission to bring Saudi to the 2010 FIFA World Cup. He began well with a 2–1 victory in Teheran against Iran. Saudi Arabia's first ever away victory against Iran and Iran's first loss at home in almost 40 games. But despite the good start, Saudi Arabia failed to qualify for the World Cup and his job came under scrutiny. On 10 January 2011, he was sacked after losing his first game in the Asian Cup 2011 against Syria, as well as constant pressure from fans, former players and sports analysts.

Braga

In the summer of 2012, he signed for S.C. Braga. His first major signing as manager was Portuguese Midfielder Rúben Micael.

Peseiro started his managerial role at Braga with success as Braga qualified for the second time in their history in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League, after eliminating Udinese in the play-off round, by beating them in the penalties, after the first and second legs ended in 1–1.

In the end of the season, SC Braga and José Peseiro reached for an agreement to terminate Peseiro's contract of one more season (despite the victory in the Portuguese League Cup), due to the missing the main goal: ending in the top three of Portuguese Liga and consequent qualification for the 2013–14 UEFA Champions League and below expectations performance in 2012–13 UEFA Champions League Group Stage.

Al-Ahly

On 9 October 2015, the Egyptian club Al Ahly SC announced the signing of José Peseiro, Ahly fans protested against the decision once the announcement of signing Peseiro was published, the fans requested from the president of Al Ahly club to cancel the contract due to Peseiro's weak resume.

External links

• José Peseiro manager stats at ForaDeJogo
• Profile at LPFP
• José Peseiro manager stats at footballzz.co.uk

Awards
Preceded by None	Portuguese Coach of the Year 2005	Succeeded by Sérgio Santos