Uruguayan and Argentine resist as foreign coaches with more titles in Brazil

On February 24, 1980, Jornal de Sergipe published the following headline: Itabaiana taught football to the three-time Brazilian champion. The northeastern team had defeated Internacional, winner of Serie A in 1975, 1976 and 1979, 2-1, in Beira-Rio. It was a feat.

“It’s a team of true males”, praised the coach, Argentine Juan Celly.

When that happened, the Uruguayan Felix Magno, a soccer oracle in Porto Alegre, was already retired. The former Uruguayan player and coach would die the following year, as one of the greatest coaches in Coritiba’s history.

Upon debuting in the Brazilian Championship this Saturday (9), against Ceará, Abel Ferreira will seek a sequence at Palmeiras that can lead him to equal Magno and surpass Celly, the two foreign coaches with the most titles in national football – counting first division states. , national and international tournaments.

“I am a football gypsy who settled in Brazil,” Magno said in an interview shortly before he died.

Born in Las Piedras, Uruguay, he arrived in Brazil in 1926, at the age of 18. He played for eight teams in the southern region of the country, but it was as a coach that he left his mark. He was five-time champion of Paraná for Coritiba (1951, 1954, 1956, 1957 and 1959), twice winner of Mineiro for Atlético (1946 and 1947) and triumphed in Catarinense for Avaí (1943).

Some publications also credit him with the title of Santa Catarina of the following year, but this did not happen. “In the 1944 conquest, the coach of Avaí was João Rosa”, says Spyros Diamantaras, the club’s historian.

His eight trophies represent one more than those lifted by Juan Celly. Argentine born in Santo Tomé, province of Corrientes, he made a career as a coach in northeastern football, especially in Sergipe. For Itabaiana, he was state champion in 1973, 1978, 1979 and 1980. He lifted the cup for Confiança in 1990. He was part of Sergipe’s victory in 1964 and 1982, the latter shared with Itabaiana.

Like Abel Ferreira, Celly claimed to be concerned about the quality of local football and suggested changes. The current commander of Palmeiras has already shown himself to be annoyed with some aspects of the sport in the country. Like the calendar, for example.

In an interview with Gazeta de Sergipe, in 1964, Celly suggested dividing the Sergipe Championship between teams from the interior and the capital. They would be two different tournaments, inspired by what was done for decades in Argentina, where there was the metropolitan tournament, between teams from the Buenos Aires region and those from the countryside.

“In the end, in the best of three, the champion would be known. He also adds, there is a lack of values, renovation. thus better income”, says the text of the report, talking about the state competition.

Abel Ferreira has five titles won in the country. Copa do Brasil 2020, Libertadores 2020 and 2021, Recopa Sudamericana 2022 and Paulista 2022.

In theory, you have the possibility of winning three more by December: Brazilian, Copa do Brasil and Libertadores. That would bring him to eight. There is no date yet for the Club World Cup, a competition disputed by the best South American.

“I don’t know how the team will be in the middle of the season. Our priorities were the World Cup and the Recopa. We prepared these players, from the beginning, with great intensity. exhausting, the little rest time. I don’t know how we’re going to hold on, but we’re going to do everything we can”, said the Portuguese after winning the São Paulo title with a 4-0 rout over São Paulo.

According to the coach, Palmeiras was prepared to reach their physical peak in the Club World Cup, in February, when they were defeated by Chelsea.

It is possible to emphasize that in Abel’s list of victories there are national and international tournaments, in theory more difficult than the state ones obtained by Magno and Celly. But the Uruguayan and Argentine coaches also overcame difficulties, such as the level of professionalism of football in past decades, something that the Portuguese does not face at Palestra Itália.

“Football is in my blood, so I don’t even consider it a profession. It’s a hobby,” Felix Magno, still the biggest foreign winner in Brazil, told Jornal do Dia, from Rio Grande do Sul, in 1957.