For the youngest manager at Euro 2012, team spirit is more important than any other factor – and his methods are paying off
Whatever the outcome of the Euro 2012 semi-final with Spain, Portugal have already regained their pride. It is the fourth time Portugal have reached the last four of a European Championship but never have they done so from a position of such disarray.
When Paulo Bento took over as national coach, in September 2010, Poland and Ukraine seemed very distant. In fact, the team were in pieces. They had started qualifying for Euro 2012 dreadfully. They had conceded four goals at home to Cyprus, drawing 4-4, and lost 1-0 in Norway.
This came after the bizarre episode when Carlos Queiroz had been suspended for six months by anti-doping authorities for disrupting a drug test. The court of arbitration for sport later lifted the ban and said that he had not "disturbed" the doping officials but that he had "uttered some very distasteful and sexually descriptive comments regarding the mother of the anti-doping president".
The assistant coach, Agostinho Oliveira, had overseen the first two qualifying matches but the Portuguese Football Association was so desperate it tried to hire José Mourinho for two games. Real Madrid, however, refused to share the manager and so the FA turned to Bento.
Without Mourinho, the heavy responsibility of lifting the national team was given to Bento, who had taken Sporting Lisbon to the knockout stage of the Champions League for the first time but left the club in November 2009 after a series of poor results.
It was a gamble but Bento said: "For me it's an honour to be considered after one of the world's best coaches [Mourinho]," he said at the time. "The situation is difficult, so we need responsible men," he added just before his first game in charge, against Denmark, Portugal's main rivals for a place in the finals.
Portugal won that match, in Oporto, as well as the next four, with Bento sparking an amazing recovery. They did not quite overhaul Denmark at the top of the table but they beat Bosnia-Herzegovina in the play-offs to fulfil Bento's first mission.
It had not been a smooth ride, however. During qualification he clashed with two important players, Ricardo Carvalho and José Bosingwa. Carvalho, the Real Madrid central defender, simply left the team camp when he realised he would not be in the starting XI against Cyprus and the Chelsea full-back was alleged to have faked an injury before the friendly against Argentina. Bento did not forgive them. Some say he is stubborn, but most people see him as a man of strong convictions.
For Bento, at 43 the youngest manager at Euro 2012, team spirit is more important than anything. The words "respect" and "solidarity" are key words in Bento's leadership manual, as well as "frontality" – he always fronts up, does not evade a question. "With him there are no diversions, he faces everything," João Alves, Bento's first coach as a professional player, said recently. Alves is one of his inspirations as a manager, as are Juanma Lillo and Fernando Vásquez, whom he played for at Oviedo.
Bento deals well with the media. He always shows "tranquillity", a word he used so often some years go that it inspired a Portuguese comedy group called Gato Fedorento (Smelly Cat) to start a joke about it (as well as making fun of his hair). Bento laughed about it, but does not use that particular word as often these days. He always wants to protect the team and often responds to the criticism coming his players' way. Often, but not always. "It's not my nature to always turn the other cheek," he explained.
But there is also room for "flexibility", his fourth leadership principle, in his strong personality. Carlos Martins and Silvestre Varela, players who Bento had dismissed at Sporting, were still called to the national team. Martins was very important in the qualifying campaign, but missed Euro 2012 because of an injury. Varela is in the squad and scored the late, winning goal against Denmark.
Bento wants a group of players he can trust. Maximum freedom, maximum responsibility, is his thinking. Trust is earned, not imposed. Bento was criticised during the Euro 2012 preparations for giving the players four complete days off, but he never changed his thinking. He showed he trusted them and they responded, in their free time, by having dinner together, showing how good the team spirit has become.
It would not be right to describe Bento as a demanding father, he is more of an older brother. He coached players such as Rui Patrício, Miguel Veloso and João Moutinho when they were starting their careers at Sporting. He even played with some of them, including Cristiano Ronaldo. Bento has always tried to protect the Real Madrid forward from the critics and remove pressure from his shoulders. Asked several times about the importance of Euro 2012 to the Ballon d'Or award, the coach said that Ronaldo had already done enough to win it.
At Euro 2012 Portugal have been a reflection of Bento's values: tenacity, solidarity, humility, accuracy. The team are everything; by playing for the team, stars stand out. Bento is proving that he has the right character to coach a national team. He has also exhibited a special knack for winning knockout games, as he displayed in winning four trophies, but not a league title, at Sporting.
Like during the Scolari era, Portugal have a united squad, and the affection of the country for the team has been recovered. And just like the Brazilian, Bento likes to give some stability to the squad. He was the first Portuguese national coach to play four times with the same starting lineup in a big tournament, remaining faithful to his original plan. If it were not for Helder Postiga's injury, he would probably have used that XI for the remainder of the tournament.
Whatever happens in the final week of Euro2012, Bento should lead Portugal into the 2014 World Cup qualifying phase. His first agreement with the Portuguese FA was valid only until this summer, but after last winter's play-off win it said it wanted to clarify his future. It was a risky move, but the new president was right to give two more years to this man of strong convictions.
Nuno Travassos is a football writer at Maisfutebol. Follow him at Twitter: @nunotravassos. Read More
انسخ الكود التالى و ضعه فى موقعك او مدونتك.
