Paulo Bento in Europe

August/September 2006 Edition of "Champions"

The Man Himself

Well, well, well, 3-6 months after I said Paulo Bento statistically was showing evidence of being Portugal's most sucessful coach since Mourinho it seems the media has caught on to that fact.

Said by me on February 20th on www.sportingcp.artinova.pt fórum:

"Vs. Paços de Ferreira Paulo Bento completed 20 games as Sporting's coach so I decided to check the statistics.

Paulo Bento's first 20 games at Sporting:

14 Wins.
4 Draws.
2 Losses.
46 points.

Mourinho's first 20 games at FC Porto

12 Wins.
2 Draws.
5 Losses.
38 points."

Said by me on March 20th in Rec.Sport.Soccer:

"8 wins in a row in League games but 10 wins in a row if you count Cup games as well. 12 games in a row without a loss and a total of 22-4 in goals in the last 12 games and of those 4 goals suffered 3 of them were penalties.

Okay, I'm going to say it timidly but at this point it's starting to make sense to say that Paulo Bento is starting to remind me of José Mourinho when he first started. In fact statistics wise Bento is having a better start to his career at Sporting than Mourinho did, comparing the stats in their first 25 -30 games Bento blows Mourinho away and it's not like Mourinho had a bad start at all.

It's debatable but IMHO Mourinho had a better team than Bento currently does yet Bento's work at Sporting is nothing short of spectacular, he hasn't won ANYTHING (except for the Junior title last year) yet but if this is a prelude to what he can do I have no doubt whatsoever he'll win titles and with the right team he'll make some noise in Europe in the very near future.

I'm not suggesting Sporting will emulate Mourinho's Porto in Europe but if the club can hold on to Bento and this team I think they have a great chance of getting past the group stages of the CL next season and after that anything can happen, defensively and tactically this Sporting team is very impressive. I would put up our Back-4 against any Back-4 in Europe right now.

I'll post the stats comparing Mourinho and Bento one of these days but it's darn interesting to compare Bento's debut season in top flight football with Mourinho's first 30 games in charge of Porto.

If there's such a thing as best newcomer for coaches I think Bento is the likely candidate to win it this season. If he wins his next 2 games he's statistically already the best coach we've had in the last 15 years.

André"



For the record Paulo Bento did went on to win Newcomer of the year in coaching, attributed by him by the country's sport media on May 15th.

André