Coach Pepa will guide Al-Tai in the 2022/23 season and will work outside Portugal in this role for the first time, the club that plays in Saudi Arabia’s top soccer championship announced on Tuesday.
Welcome, Pepa”, reads a publication of the coat of arms of the Saudi city of Há’il on the social network Twitter.
The 41-year-old heads abroad a week after his previous club, Victoria de Guimarães, having “retired from technical command”along with his assistants Samuel Correia, Pedro Azevedo, Pedro Oliveira, João Ricardo Pinto and Hugo Silva.
After stages in the lower categories of Sacavenense, Odivelas, Taboeira and Benfica, Pepa made his debut as coach of a senior team in the 2013/14 season, at Sanjoanense, and was promoted to the Portuguese First League in the 2016/17 season to guide the Moreirense.
After representing Tondela between 2016/17 and 2018/19, the coach was at Paços de Ferreira in 2019/20 and 2020/21, a season in which reached fifth place, his best ranking in the elite of national footballthat preceded the move to Vitória.
In Guimarães, Pepa led the local team to sixth place in 2021/22, which earned him qualification for the second qualifying round of the Europa Conference League, a feat he had already achieved last season, in Paços de Ferreira.
In Saudi Arabia, Pepa joins the Portuguese Nuno Espírito Santo, who will guide Al-Ittihad, current runner-up this season.
Source: Observadora
