Alexandre Guimarães

Alexandre Guimarães
Personal information
Full nameAlexandre Henrique Borges Guimarães
Date of birthNovember 7, 1959
Place of birthMaceió, Alagoas, Brazil
Height1.90 m (6 ft 3 in)
Playing positionMidfielder
Senior career*
YearsTeamApps†(Gls)†
1979Durpanel(16)
1980–1981Puntarenas
1982–1991Saprissa
1992Turrialba
Total377(95)
National team‡
1985–1990Costa Rica16(2)
Teams managed
1994–1995Belén
1996–1997Herediano
1997–2000Saprissa
1999Comunicaciones
2000–2002Costa Rica
2003Cartaginés
2004Irapuato
2004-2005Sinaloa
2005–2006Costa Rica
2006–2008Panama
2009–2010Al Wasl
2010–2011Al-Dhafra
2011–2012Saprissa
2012–2013Tianjin Teda
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

† Appearances (Goals).

‡ National team caps and goals correct as of 2 August 2014

Alexandre Henrique Borges Guimarães (born November 7, 1959) is a Brazilian-born, Costa Rican retired footballer and currently manager of Chinese club team Tianjin Teda F.C.[1]

Club career

Born in Maceió, Alagoas, in the northeast of Brazil, Guimarães moved to Costa Rica in 1971 at the age of twelve[2] and became a Costa Rican citizen in 1980.[3] He played basketball for Asturias but as a football player, Guimarães started his career at second division side Durpanel San Blas where he became the league's goalscorer with 16.[4] He then played for top flight clubs Municipal Puntarenas, Deportivo Saprissa, and Turrialba.

He was national champion three times with Saprissa in 1982, 1988 and 1989 and scored 95 goals in 377 official matches.[2]

International career

Guimarães made his debut for Costa Rica in a March 1985 friendly match against Canada and earned a total of 16 caps, scoring 2 goals.[4] He represented his country in 5 FIFA World Cup qualification matches and played in three matches in the 1990 FIFA World Cup.[5][6]

His final international was a June 1990 FIFA World Cup match against Czechoslovakia.

International goals

Scores and results list Costa Rica's goal tally first.
N. Date Venue Opponent Score Result Competition
1. 8 September 1985 Estadio Tiburcio Carías Andino, Tegucigalpa, Honduras  Honduras 1–1 1–3 1986 FIFA World Cup qualification
2. 7 February 1989 Estadio Nacional, San José, Costa Rica  Poland 1–1 2–4 Friendly match

Managerial career

After retiring as a player, he became one of the most successful coaches in Costa Rica's history. He started coaching Belén, then moved to Herediano in summer 1996,[7] where he achieved good results with both teams. He was hired by Saprissa, where he worked for several years, winning three national tournaments with them. His last Costa Rican team was Cartaginés, whom he joined in June 2003,[8] a stint that was catastrophic, ending with his dismissal in November 2003[9] as the team was almost relegated to the second tier and in financial troubles do to high salaries on players that did not show their quality. He has also coached several teams internationally, such as Comunicaciones[10] of Guatemala, Irapuato[11] and Dorados de Sinaloa[12] in Mexico.[13]

He is best known for his great achievements as a member of Costa Rica's national squad, and as a head coach, leading them to an almost perfect qualifier for the 2002 FIFA World Cup.[14] Not having advanced to the second round, Guima was replaced as the head coach of the national team. Later he would regain his position,[15] but was handed a National squad in a poor state. Still, he led Costa Rica's team to 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, Guimarães was chosen as the head coach for the Panama national football team[16] but he was dismissed in June 2008.[17] And in April 2009, he has moved to the Middle East to start a new challenge coaching the famous United Arab Emirates Club, Al Wasl FC, starting from the 2009/2010 Season.[18] He moved on to Dhafra in 2010.[19] In May 2011 he returned to Saprissa.[20]

On 1 June 2012, Chinese Super League side Tianjin Teda announced that they had officially signed Guimarães as new Head Coach after Croatian coach Josip Kuže was sacked.[21]

Personal life

He is a son of doctor Luis de Souza Borge and María Alice Guimaraes and has two brothers and a sister.[3] He is married to Lina Mora and has two children, Mauro and Celso,[4] who also plays for the Costa Rican national team and as of January 2015 for Spanish club Deportivo de La Coruña in La Liga.

References

  1. ↑ "Tianjin Appoints Guimarães as Head Coach". FutbolConsultants (in Spanish). 2012-05-31.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Guima - The boy from Brazil
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 De perfil (Profile) - Nación (Spanish)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 El buzón de Rodrigo - Nación (Spanish)
  5. ↑ Alexandre Guimarães – FIFA competition record
  6. ↑ Alexandre Guimarães – FIFA competition record
  7. ↑ Guimaraes es rojiamarillo - Nación (Spanish)
  8. ↑ Firmó por un año Guima es brumoso - Nación (Spanish)
  9. ↑ Guima fuera de Cartago - Nación (Spanish)
  10. ↑ Guimaraes a Comunicaciones - Nación (Spanish)
  11. ↑ Técnico Guimaraes no pudo llegar a acuerdo con Irapuato de México - Nación (Spanish)
  12. ↑ Guima renunció a Dorados - Nación (Spanish)
  13. ↑ ""Guima" al fútbol chino". alDía (in Spanish). 2012-05-23.
  14. ↑ El vuelo del estratega Alexandre Guimaraes le dio un giro a la Selección para dirigirla hacia el Mundial 2002 - Nación (Spanish)
  15. ↑ Alexandre Guimaraes ratificado como nuevo técnico de Costa Rica - Nación (Spanish)
  16. ↑ Presentan a Alexandre Guimaraes como nuevo técnico de Panamá - Nación (Spanish)
  17. ↑ Federación panameña despidió a Guimaraes - Nación (Spanish)
  18. ↑ "A daunting task ahead for Guimarães at Wasl". TheNational. 2009-04-19.
  19. ↑ A Guima le va muy bien con el equipo Al Dhafra de Emiratos - Nación (Spanish)
  20. ↑ Guimaraes es el nuevo entrenador de Saprissa - Nación (Spanish)
  21. ↑ 天津泰达迎来第七任洋帅 吉马良斯今日正式上任 (Chinese)

External links