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"Our ambition is to qualify for all the major tournaments"

World Soccer|April 2023
Since taking charge of the Southwest African nation in 2019, Angola coach Pedro Goncalves has been at the heart of their revival
- Mark Gleeson
"Our ambition is to qualify for all the major tournaments"

You have made a remarkable ascent from youth coach at Sporting’s academy to Angola’s national team coach in a short space of time. How did that come about?

At Sporting in 2015, we received a visit from the president of the Angolan club Primeiro Agosto, who came to look at the facilities. I was in the gym at the time and he came in, took some pictures, and then we started a conversation about what he was doing there. He had been looking at academies across Europe to build one for his club in Luanda. The next day I was invited to meet him and within weeks I had accepted a job there; when you’ve been in the same job for 14 years, you need another challenge.

I went to Luanda with a few colleagues from Sporting and built up the academy, and after three seasons had put together a good project. I felt I’d done my job and it was time to go home. But the federation asked me to stay on and put together an Under-17 team for the World Cup qualifiers. That was really a job for three months but we won our regional tournament and then we went to the African championship, and from there we qualified for the 2019 Under-17 World Cup in Brazil. That was not an opportunity to be missed, so I ended up staying.

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