From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alexandre Borges Guimarães (born November 7, 1959) is a Brazilian-born (Maceió in the northeast of Brazil), Costa Rican-raised ex-footballer. He arrived at Costa Rica at the age of eleven As a player, Guimarães played for Durpanel San Blas, Municipal Puntarenas, Deportivo Saprissa (the most popular soccer team of the country) and Turrialba FC. He was national champion three times with Saprissa in 1982, 1988 and 1989 and totted up 95 goals in 377 official matches.[citation needed]
In addition to making 16 appearances with the Costa Rican team including three matches in the 1990 FIFA World Cup. He became a Costa Rican citizen in 1985.[citation needed]
After retiring as a player, he became one of the most successful coaches in Costa Rica's history. He coached his beloved Saprissa for several years, winning three national tournaments with them. He has also coached several teams internationally, such as CSD Comunicaciones of Guatemala, Real Irapuato and Dorados de Sinaloa in Mexico.
He is best known for his great achievements as Costa Rica's national squad head coach, leading them to an almost perfect qualifiers to the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Not having advanced to the second round, "Guima" was replaced as the head coach of the national team. Later he would regain his position, but was handed out a the squad in a bad state. Still, he lead Costa Rica's team the 2006 World Cup, after which he quit from the squad given the team's poor performance in the tournament.
On November 7, 2006, on his 47th birthday, Guimaraes was chosen to the head coach position for the Panama national football team.
