Jorge Jesus is the new Portugal manager. That’s not officially official yet, but the Portuguese press is treating it as done, and Fabrizio Romano gave it the ‘Here we go!’ treatment. So yeah, it’s happening.
This is a huge shift in tone. Roberto Martínez was polite, diplomatic, always smiling. Jesus is the opposite. He’s loud, he’s brash, he’ll yell at his own players on the sideline if they screw up a drill. He does not care about your feelings. But the guy wins.
Jesus turned Benfica around when they hadn’t won a league title in a decade. He won three championships there, reached two European finals. At Al Nassr this past season, he finally got the club its first Saudi league title since Cristiano Ronaldo arrived. And he made a point of praising Ronaldo publicly for that. That matters because Ronaldo has said he won’t play another World Cup but hasn’t closed the door on the Euros. Having his old club coach now running the national team makes it a lot easier to imagine him sticking around.
Bruno Fernandes also blew up under Jesus at Sporting. Joao Felix revived his career under him at Al Nassr — won Saudi Player of the Year. So there’s a clear group of players who already know his system and trust him.
The flip side? Bernardo Silva. Jesus and Silva have publicly clashed before. That’s a potential tension point in a squad that already has a lot of strong personalities.
Another big question is whether Jesus’s methods actually translate to international football. He’s used to having players every day, drilling them relentlessly. With Portugal, he gets a few scattered training camps per year. Can he install his system that way? Maybe. But nobody expects boring, cautious soccer anymore. Fernando Santos and Roberto Martínez both played it safe in big games. Jesus won’t. He’ll press, he’ll attack, he’ll probably scream at someone.
Portugal’s federation president Pedro Proença reportedly wanted Jose Mourinho a year ago. But after Portugal won the Nations League, Martínez kept his job. Mourinho is now back at Real Madrid for a second stint. So Proença went with option two, and option two is a very different kind of headache.
One thing is certain: this won’t be boring. Jesus is not a boring coach. And with Ronaldo potentially extending his international run, the storylines are going to keep coming.
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