Carlos Queiroz won the Under-20 World Cup with Portugal, lifted the Champions League trophy as an assistant to Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and twice led Iran to the World Cup.
The vastly experienced Portuguese coach is now just one game away from the Africa Cup of Nations final as he takes on Egypt in a last-four encounter against hosts Cameroon on Thursday.
The 68-year-old, who was born in Mozambique before the southern African country gained independence from Portugal, sampled football in most corners of the world before reaching the banks of the Nile.
Appointed by Egypt last September, Queiroz is hoping to lead Mohamed Salah and his teammates in what will be the country’s record-extending eighth AFCON crown.
He also has his sights set on taking the Pharaohs to the World Cup in Qatar later this year in what will be his fourth appearance in the final after 1934, 1990 and 2018.
To do so they would have to beat Senegal in the play-off in March, a match-up in which Salah and his Liverpool colleague Sadio Mane would face off.
Before that, however, the climax of this Cup of Nations comes for a man straight out of the famous Portuguese School of Coaching.
Queiroz led Portugal to successive FIFA World Youth Championship titles in 1989 and again in 1991 with the likes of Luis Figo and Rui Costa.
After failing to take on Portugal’s senior side at the 1994 World Cup, he began coaching in New York on their tour of the world, replacing Arsene Wenger at the Nagoya Grampus Eight in Japan and being in charge of the United Arab Emirates.
He managed South Africa in the 2002 Cup of Nations and qualified them for that year’s World Cup, only to go before tournaments in Japan and South Korea.
‘Split Identity’
Instead he enjoyed great success at Old Trafford with Ferguson as coach of Real Madrid.
“There are many Portuguese people in football, but I have the best in Carlos Queiroz,” Ferguson said after Queiroz returned to United in 2005.
“It needed someone with a good work ability, technical knowledge, who could speak a variety of languages, have a European culture and was able to bridge a variety of nationalities. Queiroz is the perfect man for the job.”
Queiroz won the 2008 Champions League with Ferguson and then coached three consecutive World Cups with Portugal in 2010, followed by taking Iran to tournaments in Brazil and Russia.
He then served a disappointing stint in charge of Colombia before returning to his current role, back on the continent where it all began.
“I spent the best years of my life there,” he once told the French newspaper Le Monde about growing up in Mozambique.
“I still consider myself a European-African with a divided identity.”
Thursday’s semi-final against Cameroon brings together the two most successful teams in Cup of Nations history, with 12 titles between them.
It also sees Queiroz come up against another Portuguese coach, Toni Conceicao, in charge of Cameroon.
“He’s a great lad and one of the new, younger generation of coaches in Portugal,” Queiroz said of Conceicao, who is still a veteran and spent most of his career working for clubs in Portugal and Romania. Is.
“He’s doing a fantastic job in Cameroon. As a friend and colleague I wish him the best of luck in all the games he’s going to play except the next one against us.”
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