The newly appointed coach of the senior national team of Nigeria Jose Peseiro has a very good history with celebrated coach Jose Mourinho although the pair are yet to work together contrary to what has been largely reported.
Peseiro was assistant to Carlos Queiroz for a year at Real Madrid before they were both sacked after losing their wide lead to finish 4th at the end of the season. He left to become the head coach of Sporting Lisbon.
It was at Lisbon that his work caught the attention of Mourinho who left FC Porto to Chelsea around same time. Mourinho prior to then put Portuguese football on the map by guiding Porto to the UEFA Champions League title in 2004.
The next year Peseiro took an unheralded Sporting Lisbon team to the final of Europe’s second club tournament, the UEFA Cup now known as the Europa League. They lost the final 1-3 to Russian side CSKA Moscow.
Mourinho however saw a lot to give his fellow countryman a huge passmark by rating him as one of the top level coaches emerging from Spanish football at that time. He even tipped him to manage a team in England in the future. Although that didn’t happen as Peseiro became a journey man coach after the Sporting Lisbon experience.
” We have good coaches in Portugal that will be talked about in the world soonest. Peseiro has the experience of working at Real Madrid and also took Sporting Lisbon to the final of the UEFA Cup. That’s a huge statement from a team like Sporting Lisbon. He might coach in England soon. He is a good coach”, Mourinho said in 2005.
As a matter of fact the Nigeria Football Federation president Amaju Pinnick confirmed that they had a chat with Mourinho who was on the CV of Peseiro as one of his referees before taking a decision on making him the coach of the team.