Luiz Felipe Scolari

Luiz Felipe Scolari
Personal information
Full name	Luiz Felipe Scolari
Date of birth	9 November 1948 (1948-11-09) (age 60)
Place of birth	Passo Fundo, Brazil
Playing position	Defender
Club information
Current club	Chelsea
Youth clubs
1966–1973	Aymoré de São Leopoldo-RS
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1973–1979 1980 1980–1981 1981	Caxias Juventude Novo Hamburgo CSA
Teams managed
1982 1982–1983 1983 1984–1985 1986 1986–1987 1987 1988 1988–1990 1990 1991 1991 1992 1993–1996 1996–1997 1997–2000 2000–2001 2001–2002 2003–2008 2008–	CSA Juventude Brasil de Pelotas Al-Shabab Brasil de Pelotas Juventude Grêmio Goiás Al Qadisiya Kuwait Criciúma Al-Ahli Al Qadisiya Grêmio Júbilo Iwata Palmeiras Cruzeiro Brazil Portugal Chelsea
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Luiz Felipe Scolari, ComIH (born 9 November 1948 in Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), also known as Felipão and Big Phil is a Brazilian football coach and is the manager of the Premier League side Chelsea. He led the Brazilian national team to victory in the 2002 World Cup. He was also the head coach of the Portuguese national team between 2003 and 2008 taking them to the final of Euro 2004 and fourth place at the 2006 World Cup. He is a very experienced club manager, having coached numerous teams on three continents.

Playing career

A defender regarded as more uncompromising than skilful (he was known as "wooden leg" among his contemporaries), Scolari followed in the footsteps of his father Benjamin, who was also a professional footballer.^[1] His playing career encompassed spells with Caxias, Juventude, Novo Hamburgo and CSA, and often captained his sides. It was with CSA that he won his only major title as a player - the Alagoano state championship.

Managerial career

Club management

Early career

Upon retiring as a player in 1982, he was appointed manager of CSA, winning the Alagoano state championship in his first season. After spells with Juventude (twice), Brasil de Pelotas and Al-Shabab of Saudi Arabia, he moved to unfashionable Grêmio, where he won the 1987 Gaúcho state championship.

Kuwait

He then had a two year stint in charge of Kuwaiti side Al Qadisiya Kuwait, with whom he won the prestigious Kuwait Emir Cup in 1989.^[2] This was followed by a brief stint as manager of the Kuwait national team, winning the 10th Gulf Cup in Kuwait. He returned to Brazil after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait during the Gulf War and coached Criciúma to the its first major national title Copa do Brasil. He returned to club management in the Middle East, managing Al-Ahli and a second spell at Al Qadisiya.^[3]

Grêmio

In 1993 he returned to Grêmio, where he was criticised by the Brazilian media for playing the ugly side of the beautiful game with his players known for getting into brawls during matches. He won six titles in only three years including the Copa Libertadores in 1995^[4] which qualified them for the Intercontinental Cup, which they lost to Ajax Amsterdam on penalties.^[5] The following year they won the Brazilian Championship.^[6]

His team featured no real superstar and depended on workman-like players such as Paraguayan right back Francisco Arce (who he later took to Palmeiras), the tough-tackling midfielder Dinho, Paulo Nunes and centre forward Mário Jardel.^[7]

Júbilo Iwata

In 1997, Scolari became manager of J. League side Júbilo Iwata, but left after eleven games and shortly afterwards took charge of Palmeiras, one of the biggest clubs in Brazil.

Palmeiras

In three years, he led Palmeiras to the Copa do Brasil, the Mercosur Cup and their first Copa Libertadores title with a win on penalties over Deportivo Cali of Colombia. They were also runners-up to Manchester United in the 1999 Intercontinental Cup. He was named South American Coach of the Year for 1999.

Cruzeiro

In 2000 he was appointed to manage Cruzeiro, coaching them for a year.

International management

Kuwait

Scolari's first taste of international management came in 1990 when he coached the Kuwait national team. They won the Gulf Cup of Nations in 1990 beating Qatar in the final, but he was forced to leave the country when Iraq invaded during the Gulf War after which he went back to club management for a decade.

Brazil

In June 2001 he was appointed manager of his native Brazil, who with five matches remaining were in danger of not qualifying for the 2002 World Cup. Despite losing his first match 1-0 to Uruguay, Scolari eventually guided the team to qualification.

In the build-up to the finals, Scolari famously refused to include veteran striker Romário in his squad, despite public pressure and a tearful appeal from the player himself.^[8] Brazil entered the tournament unfancied, but wins over Turkey, China, Costa Rica, Belgium, England and Turkey again took them to the final, where they beat Germany 2-0 to win their fifth FIFA World Cup title.^[9] At the end of 2002 Scolari resigned as Brazil Manager.^[10]

Portugal

Scolari took over as Portugal manager in 2003 and oversaw their preparations as host nation for Euro 2004. In the finals, Portugal got through the group stages and saw off England in the quarter finals on penalties before beating the Netherlands in the semi-finals. However in the final they were beaten 1-0 by Greece.^[11]

He managed Portugal in the 2006 World Cup in Germany where they managed to reach the semi-finals, again coming out victorious in the quarter-finals against England. But they did not reach the final due to a semi-final defeat against eventual runners-up France. Following the tournament Scolari was very heavily linked with the England managers job, but he ultimately opted to remain as Portugal coach.

Scolari took Portugal to UEFA Euro 2008 and took them into the knockout stages by winning Group A before being eliminated by Germany in the Quarter Finals. During the tournament he announced that he would be joining Chelsea FC in the 2008/09 season.

Return to club management

Chelsea

Scolari took over as manager of Chelsea FC on 1 July 2008. This was announced shortly after Portugal's Euro 2008 match against the Czech Republic on 11 June. With this appointment, Scolari became the first World Cup winning manager to manage in the Premier League. Many fans will relish the confrontations between Scolari and Sir Alex Ferguson and have been warned to expect "tantrums" and more importantly "triumphs". ^[12] When asked whether his decision to join Chelsea was financial he responded "Yes, that is one of the reasons". But he added "I'm 59 and I don't want to work as a coach until I'm 70. I want to retire in four or five years, so it was a financial matter but there are other things". He also said "I could offer my son the opportunity to study elsewhere. You only get this kind of opportunity once so you take it or leave it, but it was not only financial."^[13]

Scolari later said that he had turned down an offer to manage Manchester City.^[14]

Scolari's first match in charge of Chelsea was a friendly match against Chinese side Guangzhou Pharmaceutical; Chelsea won 4-0.^[15] He made FC Barcelona midfielder Deco his first signing, for a fee of around £8 million^[16], but was subsequently frustrated in his attempts to sign Brazilian international Robinho from Real Madrid.^[17]

Scolari's career as Chelsea manager in the Premier League got off to a good start with a 4-0 victory over 2008 FA Cup winners Portsmouth.^[18]

Under Scolari, Chelsea had the biggest away win of the club in 5 years in which Chelsea won 5-0 at the Riverside Stadium in October 2008. It was also the club's biggest win ever at Middlesbrough.

Scolari's first defeat and the end of Chelsea's record 86 game, unbeaten home run was on 26 October 2008. Liverpool won the game 1-0 through a deflected Xabi Alonso strike on 10 minutes. This record stretched back 4 years and 8 months when Arsenal won 2-1 at Stamford Bridge in February 2004. Claudio Ranieri was manager at the time. Scolari's first experience of dramatic losses in England was against a spirited Burnley side in the Carling Cup 4th round. Chelsea crashed out thanks to an Ade Akinbiyi goal taking the match to extra time followed by a penalty shoot out finishing in Burnley's favour at 5-4

Personality

Scolari is famous for his temper and for his histrionic "performance" by the field while the match is going on, reacting strongly to both the best and the worst moments of his team. A good example of his fierce temper was a 12 September 2007 qualifying match for Euro 2008 against Serbia when, at the end of the game, and after the referee had blown the whistle for a 1-1 draw, Scolari, after being slapped in the hand by the Serbian player Ivica Dragutinovic, grazed him in the face with a left hook ^[19][20]. His character, however, is often seen as a good point, instead of a drawback, because he tries to keep the players (and himself) free of external pressures: he usually demands a lot more freedom than most coaches are allowed and is bent on exerting a somewhat discretionary power. Some critics mostly agree that his unique character was very beneficial to the Portuguese national team, which had a tradition of talented players but never won anything because of excessive intervention from the federation, the clubs and the player's agents, as well as a lack of a true "team spirit". However, his reputation as a "father" and big friend to his players is untouchable.

In the 2002 FIFA World Cup he gave each of his players a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, a Chinese military treatise written during the 6th century BC. He also gave the team recordings of Ivete Sangalo Festa videoclip, to enforce the Brazilian spirit and motivate the team engagement. ^[21] In the recent 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany he used the The Art of War again to plan his team's win against England. ^[22].

Scolari also holds Italian citizenship, since his family emigrated from Veneto. He is said to be a fan of Grêmio and Palmeiras.

He is a fan of Portuguese football and has attended F.C. Porto football games on several occasions. Scolari also has a cocktail named after him. The 'Big Phil Scolari' consists of mainly dark rum and exotic fruit juices and was created by master cocktail makers Dan Sherratt and Bryn Tweedale.

Honours

Centro Sportivo Alagoano

• Campeonato Alagoano: 1
  

1982

Al Qadisiya Kuwait

• Kuwait Emir Cup: 1
  

1989

Kuwait

• Gulf Cup of Nations: 1
  

1990

Criciúma

• Copa do Brasil: 1
  

1991

Grêmio

• Campeonato Gaúcho: 3
  

1987, 1995, 1996

• Copa do Brasil: 1
  

1994

• Copa Libertadores: 1
  

1995

• Campeonato Brasileiro Série A: 1
  

1996

• Recopa Sudamericana: 1
  

1996

Palmeiras

• Copa do Brasil: 1
  

1998

• Copa Mercosur: 1
  

1998

• Copa Libertadores: 1
  

1999

• Torneio Rio-São Paulo: 1
  

2000

Cruzeiro

• Copa Sul-Minas: 1
  

2001

• Copa do Brasil: 1
  

2001

Brazil

• FIFA World Cup: 1
  

2002

References

External links

• Chelsea profile
• Luiz Felipe Scolari management career stats at Soccerbase

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