The ball – the badge on the lapel of Ivic and the pressure on Quinito (FC Porto)

After the successes with Pedroto and Artur Jorge, the bar at FC Porto was very high. Bento da Costa tore past the past and picked Tomislav Ivic, a Croatian with an easy smile who already has an international approach and could represent a new era at the club, without falling into the web of comparisons with his predecessors.

In FC Porto, Ivic had two clips (1987/1988 and 1993/1994), won the Intercontinental Cup and the European Super Cup, as well as the League, Super Cup and Portuguese Cup.

“Artur Jorge left FC Porto when he still had a contract, but his wife was very ill. She told me that her dream was to leave here and die in Paris and that she had the possibility to go to Matra Racing. Knowing that all this was true, she let him leave without compensation » , as Pinto da Costa recalled in an interview with Canal Porto.

«I didn’t want anyone from the school of Pedrotto and Artur George, because of the comparisons, it was impossible to do better. I looked for a coach with prestige, with a sense of football to win. I spoke with him in Geneva and was intrigued, I knew Porto well and saw that he was not afraid to play a team that was European champions. He won the league by 15 points and won the Intercontinental Cup and the European Super Cup. He was an open coach and a great person, after he left and coached PSG I met him and he had the Porto diamond crest I gave him on his lapel. He was like that in Paris, so he was the coach who distinguished us and marked his time at FC Porto.”

With the departure of the Croatian Bento da Costa, he returned to focus on the national market and on Kineto, who did an exceptional job at Sporting de Espinho. He will end up not being able to take the responsibility of directing FC Porto:

“He felt the pressure, yeah. He couldn’t take the pressure. I went to see him at PSV once, because we were going to play against them in the European Cup. Along the way, I told him that the game was about Koeman and that his scoring…he said he wasn’t a scoring coach.” And that the Porto club must impose itself, he let Koeman lose, and we won 5-0 [a 26 Outubro 1988, no Philips Stadion, na 1.ª mão da 2.ª ronda da Taça dos Campeões Europeus]🇧🇷 In the end he said: “The president was right, I resign.” I told him not to think about it. In the second match against PSV, he didn’t even appear, it was Mursa who led the team and we won. But being human Quinito was exceptional,” he praised.