Special Envoy of the Observer in Doha, Qatar
It is not easy these days to have a greater noise than the one that existed, exists and will continue to exist about the celebration of the World Cup in Qatar. Or rather, there is always noise. In the concentrations of Portugal, Argentina and Brazil, for having some of the best players in the world. In the training camp in France, after another loss due to injury and then the Golden Ball Karim Benzema. However, all this turns out to be based on conjunctural contexts and not exactly structural. Iran turns out to be an exception to this rule, at a time when the human rights movement whose face is Mahsa Amini it assumes an increasing proportion and that more than 300 people died among more than 15,000 arrests. And that is what also puts Carlos Queiroz in a different role from the one he expected to have.
In a conversation with Portuguese journalists in the run-up to the start of the World Cup, the coach who returned to Iran in September after a first stint of eight years between 2011 and 2019 recalled more than once the four decades since he began to carry out projects to develop grassroots football in Portugal when he was not yet in the ranks of the Federation. From that moment on, at the time of the first experiences that few know between the children of Olivais and the debutants of Belenenses before being an assistant to the Estoril senior team (1983/84), he began a career with fewer titles than the that they certainly liked it, but with much more different experiences than they could imagine. And it was an almost extreme journey, which quickly put him at the top of Real Madrid or as Alex Ferguson’s number 2 at Manchester United as well as in clubs in the USA or Japan and in African teams.
Among all these passages, and almost inevitably also because of the country that it is, the passage through Iran became the most symbolic along with the second U-20 World Cup in Portugal that served as a springboard for everything else and also for what allows to beat this Monday a record that no one else has reached: being the first coach to be present at World Championships held on four continents, between Africa (Portugal in 2010 in South Africa), South America (Iran in 2014 in Brazil), Europe (Iran in 2018 in Russia) and Asia (Iran in 2022 in Qatar). And despite having that almost formatted response of “the most complicated challenge is the one that follows,” Queiroz now has the most demanding mission of all in his hands, looking at the entire context that the country is experiencing.
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Source: Observadora
