Portugal has a new coach. Ronaldo and co. to be led by former Belgium coach

This year’s World Cup in Qatar shook up several coaching positions. Brazil, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal lost their coaches. And captain Cristiano Ronaldo will get a new coach, having just left the Belgium bench.

Fernando Santos took over Portugal in 2014 and just two years later won the country’s only trophy in history when he dominated the EURO in France. He later added a second trophy when he dominated the Nations League.

But gradually, confidence in him began to wane. Santos failed to make good use of the emerging golden generation of the Iberian team and in three consecutive championships he reached the quarter-finals once and finished in the eighth twice.

After the World Championships in Qatar, he wanted to continue, but the Portuguese federation called him off. José Mourinho, who has been waiting for an offer from his country for several years, has been speculated as a possible replacement.

It reportedly came, and the experienced Portuguese was even offered to lead the national team and AS Roma at the same time. However, the deal did not happen in the end.

Roberto Martinez, who has just been sacked from Belgium, is the new coach. He has a few things in common with Santos. He also had the golden generation in the history of the national team in his hands, but he couldn’t quite use it as expected.

He did win bronze at the 2018 World Cup, but that was it. And with players like Eden Hazard, Kevin de Bruyne, Lukaku and Thibaut Courtois, more was to be expected.

Plus, his team completely fell apart at the last World Cup. The Belgians were at loggerheads with each other, and according to behind-the-scenes reports, there was even a spat in the locker room. Half of the players reportedly didn’t speak to each other, Belgium eventually crashed out in the group stage and it couldn’t have gone any other way than Martinez being sacked.

Portugal went after the 49-year-old Spaniard, a move that caused rather unhappy fans.

Source: Portugal national football team, Twitter