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

Since taking charge of the Southwest African nation in 2019, Angola coach Pedro Goncalves has been at the heart of their revival

- Mark Gleeson

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.