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We’ve seen his name scattered across every sports news channel and website over the last fortnight after his big money move to Stamford Bridge from FC Porto, but who is his replacement at the Estadio do Dragao and how will the new manager even begin to improve on last season’s outstanding success?
The fact is that new boss ,Vitor Pereira, almost certainly cannot.
Villas Boas’ Porto side of the 2010/2011 season hold numerous records including ‘Most wins in Europe in one season by a Portuguese club’, ‘Most consecutive wins in the Portuguese league’ and ‘Most points in a 30-game Portuguese league season’. This is all coupled with the fact that they became only the second side in Portugese League history to go through a complete season unbeaten. Staggering stuff.
Yes, FC Porto got a huge pay-out of £13 Million for Villas Boas’ departure, but surely this is not worth coughing up one of the most promising young managers in European football and the chance of losing a handful of their most valuable players, including the likes of Falcao who scored 39 goals in 42 appearances for the Portugese Champions last season.
It’s strikingly clear that Pereira has an extremely tough job on his hands and its difficult to predict whether the Porto board will have complete faith in their new manager if the season starts slowly at the Dragons’ Den.
Pereira endured a low-profile playing career in Portugal before progressing on to junior level coaching. He moved from this to senior management with a number of clubs including A.D. Sanjoanense and S.C. Espinho before spending two seasons with C.D. Santa Clara in Liga de Honra.
In 2010, Pereira moved to the Assistant Manager role at FC Porto until just recently when he took over from the departing Andre Villas-Boas.
Its fair to say that Pereira has good knowledge of Portugese football and the belief shown by the board to appoint him as the new manager shows that there is confidence in the new man, but only time will tell if the legacy left behind by Villas-Boas will live on successfully or crash and burn in his memory.
