Elected head of the board on October 9, 2021, after temporarily leading the club since July 9 of the same year, after the ‘fall’ of Luís Filipe Vieira, it was not long before the ‘maestro’ made Benfica champion, succeeding from -o in your first scheduled season to 100%.
Germany coach Roger Schmidt’s choice was his ‘ace of triumph’, never in a season where he put the sporting aspect first, precisely as a way to reclaim a title that had been Luz since 2018/19 eluded.
Schmidt, who was brought in from PSV Eindhoven, was a ‘shot in the mouth’ and influenced everything, namely the signing policy, as a result of which Luz brought in, for example, a player like Fredrik Aursnes, who is such a well-known German in Dutch football.
Rui Costa was right in choosing the coach, in the vast majority of players, and was always present with the team, in the style of Vieira, even if he had to work for all teams in all other sports, which he never’ left alone. ‘.
Now from the top of the stands, where he suffers side-by-side with his counterparts from other clubs, the now 51-year-old manager has achieved something unprecedented, having already been crowned champion 29 years before this title as a footballer for the ‘ eagles’.
In the history of the ‘incarnates’ and of Portuguese football, Rui Costa becomes such a unique case, as a footballer of his caliber had never reached the presidency of a ‘great’ and repeated as a manager what he had achieved as a player.
A product of the Benfica academies, he arrived at Benfica’s first team in 1991/92 – already World Under-20 Champion, a title he gave to Portugal when he scored the decisive penalty in the final against Brazil, in old Luz – , after a season on Fafe.
Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson was responsible for launching boy Rui Costa, then aged 19, and he soon started to stand out, but he only became an undisputed starter in 1992/93, the year he won the Portuguese Cup won, already with Toni instead of Ivic.
However, the ‘maestro’ had to wait until 1993/94 to become national champion, led by Toni, who ‘betrayed’ him by putting him as a substitute in the famous 6-3 with Sporting, in Alvalade, which turned out to be decisive in determining the title.
The following season he left for Fiorentina, where he stayed until 2001, then moved to AC Milan, where he became European champion (2002/03) and stayed until 2006, the year when he returned to Luz for his last two seasons. as a player.
Rui Costa, who played 177 matches and 29 goals for Benfica and 94 ‘AA’ caps and 26 goals for Portugal, left on 11 May 2008 in a 3-0 win against Vitória de Setúbal, for the 30th and last day of the 2007/ 08 edition of the I Liga.
At the age of 36, he retired from football, but this time not from the “incarnates”, in which he remained as a manager, presented on May 14, 2008 as sports director and administrator of Benfica Futebol SAD, at a press conference in which , oddly enough, announced the signing of Rúben Amorim.
For 2008/09, the ‘incarnates’ bet on the Spanish coach Quique Flores and the season did not go well, despite Rui Costa managed to convince top players such as the Argentine Pablo Aimar, the Spaniard José Antonio Reyes or the Honduran David Suazo .
The following year, with the recruitment of Jorge Jesus and a few more stars, such as the Argentinian Saviola or the Brazilian Ramires, Benfica became champions again.
The ‘incarnates’ would not win for the next three seasons, but then they won five of the six championships, including an unprecedented ‘tetra’, with Rui Costa on Vieira’s team, who even appointed the ‘maestro’ as successor to val .
By the will of the partners, who gave him 84.44% of the vote, in the elections of October 9, 2021 – in which he defeated Francisco Benitez, who had 12.24% – Rui Costa actually rose to the position of president and provisional in football , added the ’38’ to the Cosme Damião Museum.
Source: DN
