COACHES from Portugal

Top 4

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Portuguese Coaches of all time. This list of famous Portuguese Coaches is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. José Mourinho (1963 - )

With an HPI of 69.69, José Mourinho is the most famous Portuguese Coach.  His biography has been translated into 77 different languages on wikipedia.

José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix GOIH (European Portuguese: [ʒuˈzɛ moˈɾiɲu] ; born 26 January 1963), is a Portuguese professional football manager and former player who was most recently head coach of Italian Serie A club Roma. Dubbed "The Special One" by the British media, Mourinho is one of the most decorated managers ever and is widely considered to be among the greatest managers of all time. After an uneventful career as a midfielder in the Portuguese leagues, playing most of the time in the reserves' non-league games while playing for Portuguese First Division clubs, and then in the Portuguese second and third divisions where he would end his playing career at 24, Mourinho moved into coaching, first as an interpreter for Bobby Robson at Sporting CP and Porto, before gaining success as an assistant at Barcelona under both Robson and his successor, Louis van Gaal. After brief stints at Benfica and União de Leiria, Mourinho returned to Porto as manager in 2002, winning the Primeira Liga twice, a Taça de Portugal, the UEFA Cup and the UEFA Champions League, Porto's first European Cup title since 1987. That success earned him a move to England with Chelsea in 2004. Marked by braggadocio during his early managerial career, Mourinho famously said "I think I'm a special one", which came to be a renowned moniker for him. With the club, he won two Premier League titles, an FA Cup and two League Cups in his three seasons at the club, before he departed in 2007 amid reports of disagreements with club owner Roman Abramovich. In 2008, Mourinho joined Italian club Inter Milan, where he won Serie A twice, including a European treble of Serie A, the Coppa Italia and the UEFA Champions League in 2010, a first for an Italian club. This made him one of five coaches to have won the European Cup with two clubs, and later that year, earned him the first FIFA World Coach of the Year. Mourinho then moved to Real Madrid in Spain, where he won La Liga in 2011–12 with a record points tally, becoming the fifth coach to have won league titles in four countries. He also won a Copa del Rey and a Supercopa de España. Mourinho left Real Madrid in 2013 and rejoined Chelsea, where he won another league title and League Cup, but was dismissed in 2015 after a poor run of results. Remaining in England, he was appointed at Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur respectively, but his tenure at both clubs were relatively short-lived and ended acrimoniously. Despite this, Mourinho won the UEFA Europa League, League Cup and FA Community Shield in his first season with Manchester United, and led Tottenham to the final of the League Cup, where he was fired less than a week before the final was scheduled to be played. He was soon hired by Roma and won the inaugural UEFA Europa Conference League — this made him the first manager to win a major European competition with four clubs and the third manager to win the three main UEFA club competitions. He was named Portuguese Coach of the Century by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) in 2015, and was the first coach to spend more than £1 billion on transfers. Due to his tactical knowledge, charismatic and controversial personality, and a reputation for prioritising results over attractive football, he has drawn comparisons, by both admirers and critics, with Argentine manager Helenio Herrera.

2. André Villas-Boas (1977 - )

With an HPI of 53.32, André Villas-Boas is the 2nd most famous Portuguese Coach.  His biography has been translated into 45 different languages.

Luís André de Pina Cabral e Villas-Boas (Portuguese pronunciation: [luˈiz ɐ̃ˈdɾɛ ðɨ ˈpinɐ kɐˈβɾal i ˈvilɐʒ ˈβoɐʃ]; born 17 October 1977) is a Portuguese former professional football manager and the president-elect of Portuguese sports club FC Porto. He was one of a growing number of top-level managers who have never played football professionally and one of the few managers to have never played beyond youth football. His managerial career highlights include an undefeated 2010–11 season in the Primeira Liga with Porto, winning four trophies and becoming the youngest manager to win a European title in the process; guiding Tottenham Hotspur to a then-record tally of 72 points in the Premier League during the 2012–13 season (the most points by a team finishing outside the top four at the time); and three trophies during his spell with Zenit Saint Petersburg, including the club's fifth Russian Premier League title. In January 2024, almost three years after his last managerial stint at Marseille, Villas-Boas announced his candidacy to the presidency of Porto. On 27 April 2024, he won the club elections with 80% of the votes, defeating incumbent president Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, who had been in office for 42 years.

3. Nelo Vingada (1953 - )

With an HPI of 46.98, Nelo Vingada is the 3rd most famous Portuguese Coach.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Eduardo Manuel "Nelo" Martinho Bragança de Vingada (born 30 March 1953) is a Portuguese football manager and former footballer.

4. Bruno Lage (1976 - )

With an HPI of 37.62, Bruno Lage is the 4th most famous Portuguese Coach.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Bruno Miguel Silva do Nascimento (born 12 May 1976), known as Bruno Lage (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈbɾunu ˈlaʒɨ]), is a Portuguese football manager who was most recently the head coach of Campeonato Brasileiro Série A club Botafogo. During his short tenure as coach of Benfica in Portugal, he won the 2018–19 league title and the 2019 Super Cup.