THE Paulo Fonseca’s future is getting closer to being defined and the Portuguese is not coming alone to start leading Sporting.
After a ‘rollercoaster’ Sunday night, Lyon’s (still) coach has already said goodbye to the squad and is preparing to pack his suitcase and head to Alvalade.
According to the information collected by the Sport at the Minutethe Portuguese coach will bring practically the entire technical team to assist him at Sporting, except for one member, who will remain at the Ligue 1 club.
This is Jorge Maciel, who will stay in Lyon to serve as interim coach until the French team finds a suitable replacement for Paulo Fonseca.
In this way, Paulo Fonseca will be accompanied by Paulo Ferreira (assistant coach), António Ferreira (goalkeeping coach), Paulo Mourão (physical trainer) and Nelson Duarte (analyst), to begin his journey at Sporting in the next few days.
For the Portuguese coach’s place, Lyon is already starting to consider some successors. On the one hand, L’Équipe is saying that Thiago Motta is one of the candidates to be the next coach of the French club, although, on the other, the newspaper A Bola is giving the name of Carlos Vicens as a possibility, given the help of Jorge Mendes in this process, with the ex-Sporting de Braga player being close to returning to active duty, shortly after leaving Pedreira.
Varandas postponed explanations until… after Shakhtar-Sporting
Frederico Varandas, early this Monday afternoon, put an end to the silence regarding the turbulent sporting situation that Sporting is going through, following the already confirmed dismissal of Rui Borges and the imminent hiring of the (still) Olympique Lyon coach, Paulo Fonseca.
“Right now… Soon, you will have an opportunity where you can ask all the questions you want. I will clarify everything. Right now, the focus is on the game. Very soon, we will talk and you can ask whatever you want”, he stated, faced with the insistence of journalists, at Humberto Delgado Airport, in Lisbon, before the departure of the green and white delegation towards London.
The top leader of the green and white emblem therefore prefers to wait for the outcome of the match on the fourth round of the Champions League league stage, against Shakhtar Donetsk, to comment on this ‘game of musical chairs’, which, as reported by Desporto ao Minuto, is about to come to fruition.
In this duel, remember, the Lions will be coached by Tiago Fernandes, who was ‘promoted’, on an interim basis, from the B team to the main team, in a scenario very similar to that which he went through in 2018, when he went to the Emirates Stadium to ‘rescue’ a goalless draw with Arsenal, between the departure of José Peseiro and the arrival of Marcel Keizer.
(News updated at 4:54 p.m.)
