It was just last month when I spoke to Vítor Pereira and the Portuguese coach made it clear he still had ambitions of working in the Premier League. Those ambitions have now been realised.
“The main thing for me is to play quality football,” the new Wolves manager said. “That is what I love, so I really believe my next move will be to a top league in the world. This is my target for the future and I think it will happen. I was so close to being a Premier League manager on three different occasions. Small things stopped it from happening each time, but in the future I believe I will be there.”
The three occasions were with Everton (twice) and Crystal Palace, the most recent of those in 2022 when he was the frontrunner to get the Goodison job. Fan protests (including graffiti which read “Pereira out, Lampard in”), thought to be motivated by his lack of Premier League experience, led to Frank Lampard getting the nod instead.
It is a case of fourth time lucky owing to the misfortune of Gary O’Neil, fired last Sunday. Pereira is finally in the Premier League but, with Wolves second-bottom, he won’t be for long if he can’t make a difference quickly. At least, as he said when he missed out on the Everton job, he has an extensive CV to fall back on.
After earning two Primeira Liga titles with Porto, he headed to Greece, via Saudi Arabia, to win the league with Olympiakos. Stints with Fenerbahce and 1860 Munich followed, the latter of which ended in relegation, before a move to China. In 2018, he led Shanghai Port to their first league title, no mean feat in a division that had been dominated by Guangzhou Evergrande, who had won the seven previous championships. Then there was a return to Turkey before spells in Brazil with Corinthians and Flamengo.
It’s quite a mix. The experience working with Chinese owners can’t hurt, though Shanghai Port are among the better ones, not something that Wolves fans would say about Fosun International, in charge at Molineux since 2016. Selling quality players and not replacing them sufficiently is seen as just one of the club’s problems.
Saudi Arabian owners can be demanding too and Pereira has been in charge of Al-Shabab since February. The Riyadh club have won six titles but now struggle to compete with the “big four”. The status of this quartet, made up of Al-Hilal and Al-Nassr in the capital and the Jeddah giants Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli, was strengthened in the summer of 2023 when they were taken over by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Cristiano Ronaldo was already at Al-Nassr but the new financial muscle of those teams made Neymar, Karim Benzema, N’Golo Kanté, Riyad Mahrez and many others follow.
Al-Shabab, nowhere near as well supported in terms of fans and finance, have had to face up to the new reality that it is tough to impossible to mount a serious title challenge even if all is running well. Given Pereira was their 11th coach this decade, it was far from smooth sailing regardless. Igor Biscan left last December after two months and, after a brief interregnum, Pereira took over in February for the last third of the season as they finished eighth.
Given the Saudi Pro League takes a month’s break with just over a third of the campaign done, the timing of his departure could be a lot worse for Al-Shabab, who are sixth. Pereira would surely point to the fact that they are level on points with Al-Ahli and just two behind Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr. Considering that they are below only the “big four” and Al-Qadsiah, the fifth of the big spenders, owned by the Saudi oil giant Aramco and led by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, it is about where Al-Shabab should be. The club hierarchy did what they could to keep Pereira.
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Compared with January, the team are tighter at the back and better organised. Often using a 3-5-2 with the ball and 5-3-2 without it, but able to be flexible, Pereira says he is less wedded to certain systems and formations than before. With Wolves shipping goals, a certain pragmatism may help. “New things, new concepts are emerging all the time,” Pereira said. “Ten years ago, I thought one way but today I don’t. Evolution has led me to understand things differently. That’s why I say I’m always studying.”
Pereira has worked best when the players respond to his intensity and attention to detail. “Every day I study football, every day I spend hours and hours and hours studying,” he said. “And what is studying? It’s analysing the great teams, sometimes understanding details where we can then, with that detail, create what we want for our game. That’s what makes me passionate about football to this day.”
Wolves fans will hope that passion is still burning bright as ever in May so the club can look forward to a fresh start in the Premier League, as can, finally, Vítor Pereira.
Source: theguardian.com
