Fernando Santos will take over as Polish football coach, following a legacy as a ‘conqueror’ in Portugal, winning Euro 2016 and the League of Nations (2019), in an eight-year journey that failed to produce consensus. He signed until 2026 and said it was “rewarding to continue this coaching career in a country with so much influence, with so much quality.”
“Poland is a great country, with a huge history, a huge culture, comparable to the level of its national team. It is a team with many quality players, it is one of the teams that went to the World Cup. As of today, I am “I am Polish, I am one of you. We are going to do everything we can to make the Polish people happy,” he said during a relaxed press conference, where he asked for “time” while leaving “a word of ambition”.
Fernando Santos showed confidence in the work he will develop: “I am absolutely convinced that we will bring a lot of joy and we will work hard for it, all together. Happiness does not come from the sky, happiness is sought good for the Polish national team”.
The Portuguese coach was also asked about Cristiano Ronaldo and Paulo Sousa. “More important than the players is the team. The team is just that, a group of players. Everyone will have their own mentality, personality. As a national coach, I have to bring everyone together. That’s what I’ve always done.” throughout my career – which has been long – and I will continue to do so. I am friends with Paulo [Sousa], I have been in a relationship with him for years, we were together in the youth teams in Portugal. We are different people. I never review my colleagues’ work. Thinking we’re better or worse just because we have different styles…”
The CR7 topic seems to have been forgotten… Finally, the engineer was challenged to highlight some prominent Polish players, but again preferred not to individualize, in a response that can be seen with a message for Ronaldo: “I have an expression I often use: “I only know stars in the sky. And I’ve never seen one alone. The team must be a group of stars.”
Greece and Euro 2026 for Portugal
Following in the footsteps of Paulo Sousa, who also coached the Poles, Fernando Santos inherits a Poland that reached the last 16 of the 2022 World Cup, in which he led the Portuguese to the quarter-finals, with star Lewandowski at the helm and the ambition to rise in the mediocrity it has shown in recent international tournaments.
The Polish Federation therefore turned to the 68-year-old coach, with extensive experience in leading Greece (2011-2014) and Portugal (2014-2022) in the final and qualifying stages, with two achievements, Euro 2016 and League of Nations , to brighten up a curriculum that is also that of the two trophies of the senior Portuguese national team, even if the football played has caused a lot of discussion.
In charge since 2014, when he succeeded Paulo Bento, Fernando Santos parted ways with the corner team in December after their elimination in the quarter-finals of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar against Morocco (1-0), a defeat hard to accept, despite the is Portugal’s third-best performance in the largest global competition of selections.
However, the coach will be immortalized in the history of Portuguese football, through the conquests that no one before him managed to achieve, taking advantage of the great quality that he “handled” in the service of the Portuguese for just over eight years. team, achieving a total of 67 triumphs in 109 encounters, becoming a record holder in both.
Although the Portuguese fans never agreed, Fernando Santos, despite criticism of the conservative style – which he refused – managed to win in his first test of fire, Euro 2016. A goal from Eder beat France in the final in the 109th minute.
From glory to forced departure due to problems with Ronaldo
Fernando Santos was credited by the fans with the greatest performance in Portuguese football, but the criticism would surface again at the 2018 World Cup, with the elimination at the feet of Uruguay in the round of 16 (2-1), early round of the tournament for the current European champion.
The youngest continental competition for selections, the League of Nations, had its inaugural edition the following year and Fernando Santos immediately took it upon himself to win the sceptre, which he did all the more in a ‘final four’, this time in Portugal. played. solved by a goal from Gonçalo Guedes, against the Netherlands, 1-0.
Seen by many as having the best set of players ever, the national team would fail again at Euro 2020, played in 2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic, with another drop in eighth, now against Belgium (1-0), coached by Roberto Martínez the new Portuguese coach.
This year at the 2022 World Cup, for which he had to qualify play off, since losing direct qualification to Serbia, Fernando Santos took on the goal of making history again and making Portugal world champions for the first time, but the dream came to a surprise Morocco, in an edition marked by several controversies around Cristiano Ronaldo , who would even lose his title in the knockout phase.
Before joining Portugal, Fernando Santos had become a reference coach in Greece, reaching the Greek national team for four years, including at Euro 2012 and the 2014 World Cup.
With family roots in the town of Sorgaçosa, belonging to the municipality of Arganil, Fernando Santos graduated in electronic engineering and telecommunications in 1977, during his football career, where he won the second division with Estoril, and now he enters a new country in his career, Poland , with a house in Warsaw.
Source: DN
