Of the 32 coaches who started the World Cup in charge of a national team, nine have already left their positions. Some had already hired him, others were prisoners of their results. In the latter group it is necessary to include, from this Thursday, a Fernando Santothat he consented to his separation from Portugalafter elimination in the quarterfinals of Qatar 2022.

They had already left before Gerard Martino (Mexico), Luis Enrico (Spain), Roberto Martinez (Belgium); louis vangaal (Holland); Paul Bento (South Korea); eight bye (Ghana); Charles Queiroz (Iran); Y titus (Brazil).

This Thursday, the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF), five days after the elimination of its national team in Qatar, added Santos to that list, after reaching an agreement “to wrap up a highly successful run that began in September 2014”.

“Now the process will be started with the aim of choosing the next coach of the national team”, concludes the statement.

“I leave with a feeling of enormous gratitude. (…) When you lead a group, you have to make some difficult decisions. It is normal that not everyone is happy with the choices I have made”, reacted Santos, for his part, in a video posted on the Federation website.

The 68-year-old Portuguese coach said last Saturday, with regard to the last match in the World Cup, that I wasn’t going to quitbut the local press had assured for several days that the heads of the FPF wanted to shorten their mandate, which in principle should last until Euro 2024.

According to the sports newspaper Disk, Jose Mourinho he would be the priority candidate for the Federation, which would even be willing to replace Santos on an interim basis to allow the Giallorossi coach to end his season in the Italian club.

Interviewed by journalists on Thursday afternoon, upon his arrival in southern Portugal for a meeting with Roma, Mourinho did not comment.

Portuguese coaches rui george (under 21 coach), Abel Ferreira (Palmeiras), Paul Fonseca (Lilac), Rui Victoria (Egyptian coach) e George Jesus (Fenerbahçe) are also on the list of potential candidates mentioned by the media.

Fernando Santos won the first major titles in the history of the national team: Euro 2016 and the 2019 Nations League, won on Portuguese soil.

But the strict coach, close to Cristiano Ronaldo since the early days of the five-time Ballon d’Or at Sporting Portugal, is also responsible for the eliminations in the round of 16 of the 2018 World Cup and Euro 2020.

His detractors have generally pointed to his overly conservative style of play, which did not allow him to take advantage of it the new emerging generation of talented players.

In addition, in the middle of the 2022 World Cup, he ended up in a public crossover with CR7, who benched the striker and captain in the round of 16 against Switzerland (6-1) and in the quarterfinals against Morocco, after showing his anger for being substituted in the previous match.

That dispute was the least of the controversies surrounding Cristiano Ronaldo, who parted ways with Manchester United in the midst of the World Cup, strongly affecting Portugal’s tour.