Jorge Sampaoli new coach of Brazilian top club Flamengo | Foreign football

Sampaoli will succeed the Portuguese Vítor Pereira at the reigning champion of the Copa Libertadores. He was fired last week due to disappointing results in the first months of this year. Under his leadership, Flamengo played a disappointing World Cup for Clubs, lost the match for the Brazilian Super Cup and the game for the South American Super Cup. A 4-1 defeat against arch-rival Fluminense last Sunday in the final of the state championship was fatal to Pereira, who was only appointed in mid-December last year.

Sampaoli currently resides in Spain. He is expected in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. The Brazilian national competition starts this weekend. Flamengo will play the first game in Rio de Janeiro against Coritiba on Sunday afternoon, but Sampaoli will not be on the bench yet. His debut as a coach is scheduled for Wednesday, when Flamengo plays the second game in the group stage of the Copa Libertadores against the Chilean Ñublense in the Maracanã stadium. The cup holder in Ecuador lost the first game to Aucas (2-1).

The Argentinian Sampaoli has worked in Brazil before. In 2019 he coached Santos, finishing second in the Brazilian league, behind champion Flamengo. He then worked for another year at Atlético Mineiro from Belo Horizonte, which he led to third place. He then left for Olympique Marseille, where he worked for a year and a half.

Sampaoli achieved his greatest success as a coach in Chile, where he made a name for himself as an obsessed and fiercely compassionate coach who stands for spectacular, attacking football. With Universidad de Chile, the Argentinian won the Copa Sudamericana in 2011, the second most important club tournament in South America. He then coached the Chilean national team from December 2012 to January 2016, winning the Copa América in 2015, Chile’s first major prize.

Sampaoli then worked in Europe for the first time from 2016, at Sevilla, the club where he started again at the end of last year. Although he had a two-year contract during his first stay with the Spanish club, he left after just one year to become Argentina’s national coach.

Much was expected of him La Albiceleste, but Argentina only made it to the 2018 World Cup after a difficult qualifying series in the last round. At the final tournament in Russia, the team disappointed in the group stage. The curtain fell in the eighth final, albeit after a spectacular and goal-rich duel with France (4-3). Shortly after that World Cup, Sampaoli was fired as national coach.