The Qatar Football Federation (QFA) announced the hiring of Portuguese Ilídio Vale, former assistant to the Portugal national team, as the new coach of the Middle Eastern country’s Olympic team.
In a statement, the QFA described the 65-year-old Vale as “a very experienced manager” who “played a key role… during one of the most successful seasons” in Portuguese football.
Vale was, between 2014 and December 2022, assistant to Fernando Santos in the main Portuguese team, being part of the technical team that won the European soccer championship in 2016, in France.
The statement also recalled that Vale won 27 titles with the youth teams of Futebol Clube do Porto, having also coached the B team between 2000 and 2004.
Vale will replace fellow Portuguese Bruno Pinheiro, 46, who in July took over as coach of Al-Sadd, in the Qatari first division.
Pinheiro, who worked at Estoril Praia between 2020 and 2022, will join the team that signed Colombian international Matheus Uribe, formerly of FC Porto.
The QFA stressed that Ilídio Vale’s main objective is the U-23 Asian Cup, which will take place between April 15 and May 3, 2024, precisely in Qatar, which serves as a qualification for the football tournament of the Olympic Games in Paris 2024. .
Despite being qualified for the U-23 Asian Cup, as host, Qatar will participate in the qualification, between September 4 and 12, it has been placed in group B, along with South Korea, Myanmar (formerly Burma) , Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam.
Shortly after, between September 19 and October 7, the team will face Japan and Palestine in the group stage of the Asian Games soccer competition, a multi-sport event in Asia.
The Asian Games, which will take place in Hangzhou in eastern China, were originally scheduled to start in September 2022 but have been postponed to May 2023 due to Covid-19 outbreaks.
In February, the organization of the Asian Games revealed that the event will have Portuguese-speaking interpreters, after a volunteer selection process carried out in collaboration with the Zhejiang University of Foreign Languages.
That university is one of 25 higher education institutions in mainland China that offer degrees in Portuguese.
Timor-Leste is the only Portuguese-speaking country that will participate in the Asian Games. Macao, the Chinese special administrative region where Portuguese remains the official language, will also have athletes in the competition.
Source: TSF
