Abidjan (dpa)
Roy Vitoria, the coach of the Egyptian national team, started his coaching career from “scratch”, until he reached the leadership of most of the teams that won the African Cup of Nations, before the thirty-fourth edition, which will be held in Côte d’Ivoire from January 13 to February 11, 2024.
The Egyptian national team won the title 7 times, most recently in 2010, while it lost the final twice in the last 3 editions to Cameroon in Gabon in 2017, then Senegal in the final of the last edition in 2022 in Cameroon.
The “Pharaohs” begin their 26th participation in the African World Cup, under the leadership of Rui Vitoria from Group Two, which also includes Ghana, Cape Verde and Mozambique.
Vitoria, 53 years old, took over the leadership of the Egyptian national team with a contract extending for four years, until the 2026 World Cup finals in America, Canada and Mexico. He started with very distinguished results in the first 13 matches, achieving 11 victories, compared to one draw and one defeat against Tunisia in a friendly match last September. .
Vitoria demonstrated the offensive strength of the Egyptian national team, as the team scored 31 goals under his leadership. He also built a strong defensive system, and the “Pharaohs” only conceded 6 goals since he took over.
Before the Egyptian national team, the Portuguese coach began his football career from “scratch”, whether as a player or coach, as he moved between 7 obscure clubs for 15 years in the third and fourth divisions in Portugal, before retiring in 2003, at the age of 32.
Vitoria began his coaching career with the Portuguese club Villafranquense, and from there he moved to lead the youth team at Benfica between 2002 and 2004, after which he continued his movement between coaching unknown clubs, until he contracted with Vitoria Guimaraes, and stayed with him for 4 seasons between 2011 and 2015, and won the Portuguese League Cup with him in the 2012 season. -2013.
The biggest leap in Vitoria's coaching career came when he signed with Benfica, the first pole of Portuguese football, in the summer of 2015. He stayed with him for three and a half seasons, and won 6 local titles with him, including the league championship twice in a row in 2016 and 2017.
Rui Vitoria also achieved a number of records with Benfica, in addition to winning the Best Technical Manager award in the Portuguese League twice in 2016 and 2017, before he left in January 2019 due to poor results.
A few days after his dismissal, Rui Vitoria left Portugal, never to return again, and moved to coach Al-Nassr Saudi Arabia, where he won the league and Super Cup titles in 2019, and led the team to qualify for the semi-finals of the AFC Champions League in 2020, where it lost to Persepolis of Iran on penalties.
Things changed a lot, and Vitoria left Al-Nasr in late 2020, leaving the team in 15th place, after collecting 8 points, after 10 rounds of the Saudi League, after winning the Coach of the Month award 3 times in March 2019, October 2019, and August 2020.
In his last stop before the Egyptian national team, Vitoria worked as technical director of Russia's Spartak Moscow in a short experience that lasted only 7 months, from May 2021 to December of the same year.
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