Paulo Jorge Bento is a famous Portuguese footballer in the past, and is currently the head coach of the Olympiacos Greek club. The player spent most of his career in his native Portugal, but still spent four years abroad - in neighboring Spain.
Carier start
Paulo Bento began to play in the youth team of one of the three “whales” of Portuguese football - the Lisbon “Benfica”. At the age of 19, his level increased for transferring to the main squad, but the young midfielder for the “Eagles” never played a single match.
In order to receive regular playing practice, the footballer moved to Estrela da Amador. In his first season, Paulo Bento did not always go on the field in the first team, however he made a significant contribution to the first trophy in the club’s history - in 1990 the “three-color” won the Portuguese Cup. In the next championship, the midfielder proved himself already as a player of the main squad and leader of the center of the field, and at the end of the season he was sold to Vitoria.
Return to Benfica
As part of the “conquistadors", the football player spent three successful seasons and began to regularly be called up to the Portuguese national team. Note that for a player who does not play for Porto, Sporting, Benfica or does not play in European top clubs, it was extremely difficult, and there were only a few such players in the history of the national team. However, one of them was just Paulo Bento. The Portuguese football player made his debut in 1992 and defended the colors of the team until the end of the 2002 World Cup.
High-quality football, which was shown by the midfielder in the early nineties of the last century, forced to draw the attention of the capital “Benfica” again. This time, the player was no longer kept on the bench and in two seasons he spent fifty matches for the “Eagles” and won the Portuguese Cup with the team.
Foreign stage and career completion
At the age of 27, Paulo Bento was in great shape and was visible to several leaders of European football, but the football player himself, surprisingly, chose to pursue a career in the modest Spanish “Oviedo”. As part of the “blue” Bento was elected captain and in four seasons played 136 matches for the club. Bent did not succeed in winning any trophy with an outsider of Spanish football, and in 2000 the midfielder decided to return to finish playing home.
The Lisbon Sporting is the fifth and final club in the career of Paulo Bento. Nevertheless, it was in the “lions” that the elderly midfielder managed to win most of his trophies. With Sporting, Bento finally won the championship gold medals and chalked up the next Portuguese Cup. In 2004, the midfielder ended his career as a player.
Coaching
Since 2005, the Portuguese specialist switched to coaching. He decided to stay in the Sporting structure, in which he led the youth team first, and then the main one. Bento built almost a new team, and under his leadership such future top players as Luis Nani, Miguel Veloso, Joao Moutinho and others were revealed. With Sporting, the coach twice won the national cup, after which in 2010 he led the national team of Portugal.
For another period of his coaching career, Bento, for sure, would prefer not to remember. After working for two months at Cruzeiro, the Portuguese was dismissed due to unsatisfactory work results. The Brazilian grand at that time occupied the penultimate place in the standings.
In the summer of 2016, the Greek press seriously started talking about the candidacy of Paulo Bento. “Olympiacos” (Piraeus), who issued the next championship in Greece on the eve, offered the Portuguese a two-year contract. In 2017, he was dismissed as a coach after a series of defeats in the championship.