Carlos Queiroz: The man behind Iran's surge to becoming the best team in Asia

Queiroz is revered in Iran as the brains behind the national team’s revival

When India take on Iran in their third 2018 FIFA World Qualifier, they will go up against not only the highest ranked Asian team, but also a team whose current coach was previously the head coach at Real Madrid, Portugal and the assistant to Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. Carlos Queiroz is a man very highly regarded in coaching circles and rightly so, because the man comes with a resume that showcases his pedigree.

Born in Mozambique, Queiroz was never a great player, and he turned his attention to management quite early. He took charge of Portuguese team Estoril-Praia before being appointed coach of the Portuguese U-20 team and moving on to the senior national team in 1991 for a period of two years.

Though his record wasn’t very great, he was still considered to be an up-and-coming coach who had good ideas and was good at promoting youth and aiding their development, which he showed at Sporting CP – where he worked for two years.

Nomadic early coaching career

Queiroz’s early coaching career was quite nomadic, as he moved to the United States and then Japan, working in both places for a combined span of about two years. His work in the United States centred on how to accelerate the learning and development of professionalism among players in the United States.

The current Iran coach then returned to coaching national teams, taking charge of UAE first, before leaving them to work with South Africa. It was there that he notched up the first major achievement of his coaching career as he helped the Bafana Bafana reach the 2002 FIFA World Cup, building on their success of reaching the 1998 World Cup finals in France.

However, this tenure at South Africa also came to an abrupt end as he fell out with the South African Federation due to the behind-the-scenes politics; he quit his post to then make the biggest move of his career. Queiroz moved to Manchester United in 2002, to work as the assistant to the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson.

However, the instability that had seen him change a lot of jobs till then followed him to Manchester as his work saw Real Madrid interested, who wanted him to manage their team of Galacticos. His tenure at Real was pretty brief though, as he was fired at the end of a year when the club won only the Spanish Super Cup, despite having a squad that included the likes of Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham and Luis Figo.

The Portuguese coach during his Real Madrid tenure with the likes of Raul, Ronaldo and Beckham

Return to Old Trafford

Queiroz made a swift return to Old Trafford, as Ferguson was more than happy to have him back as his right-hand man. He was a fiery character who did great work behind the scenes at United. Evidence of his influence in the dressing room and on tactics was seen when club captain Roy Keane indicated his displeasure at the amount of freedom given to the assistant coach to operate.

Queiroz was also thought to be behind the decision to let Roy Keane leave, which was taken in principle by manager Sir Alex after the Irishman’s outburst on MUTV. Keane had criticised the players and Queiroz too following a pre-season falling out between the two, which had lingered on for some time.

His influence though was seen on the Manchester United team in the years to come, as they completed a period of transition to finally claim the Premier League title in the 2006/07 season on the back of a scintillating season full of attacking football and greater emphasis on counter-attacking at speed.

Carlos Queiroz with Sir Alex Ferguson and Cristiano Ronaldo at Manchester United

The next season saw United lift the Champions League trophy for the third time in their history, as the club defeated Chelsea in the final on penalties. Queiroz’s meticulous methods and attention to detail during the course of that entire campaign were brought to the fore a few years later by Gary Neville, who spoke about how the Portuguese coach helped fine-tune and tighten the team’s approach to defending, especially before their semi-final against Barcelona.

Neville wrote in his book about how the defenders were shown, through the use of sit-up mats, as to what their specific positions should be while defending. Moreover, both Carrick and Scholes were given detailed instructions as to how to close down space and try and force errors. That would help the team use Tevez, Rooney and Park’s strengths of pace, power and graft to full use as they would look to feed Ronaldo, whose directness and instinctive finishing would then pose a lot of threat.

“In training, Queiroz was so meticulous he used sit-up mats to mark the positions he wanted the players to occupy. Carlos was obsessive. We'd never seen such attention to detail. We rehearsed time and again, sometimes walking through the tactics slowly with the ball in our hands.”

“But the instructions were simple. Ronaldo up front tying them up. Carlos Tevez dropping on to Yaya Toure every time he got the ball. Let their centre-halves have it. They couldn't hurt us. With Park and Rooney out wide the (United) full backs had two hard-working wingers to help shackle Messi and Iniesta.

“But the really complex part was for Scholes and Carrick. Carlos had worked out precise positions for each of them. Suffocation was a necessary tactic.” – Excerpt from Neville’s book

All that attention to detail definitely paid off, and in the summer, Queiroz left the club to take up the role of national team manager of Portugal. His absence was definitely felt by United, who reached two more Champions League finals in the next three years but were found out defensively by Barcelona on both occasions. They haven’t shown the same Champions League pedigree since.

Disappointing spell with Portugal followed by move to Iran

Queiroz’s second spell in charge of Portugal wasn’t very successful either, as the team struggled through the qualification campaign for the 2010 World Cup before bowing out of the tournament in the round of 16 after a 1-0 loss to eventual winners Spain. He was accused of being overly defensive and failing to inspire a highly talented bunch of players to anything other than mediocrity.

Carlos Queiroz made Iran the best team in Asia

Queiroz then took over the Iran national football team and he has moulded them into the best team in Asia – overseeing a development that saw the team become defensively stout, tough to beat and threatening on the counter-attack. He was instrumental in the integration of Iranian-origin players such as Ashkan Dejagah and Reza Ghoochannejhad, who have helped add good attacking thrust to the team.

The Iran side impressed during the 2014 FIFA World Cup, as they almost pulled off a 0-0 draw against the mighty Argentineans, losing out only to a 90th minute winner from Lionel Messi while threatening to take the lead many times themselves. Though they couldn't qualify for the knockout stages, the entire country wanted Queiroz to stay on with the team, as they knew he was the chief cause of their rise to become Asia’s top-ranked team, and 40th in the world.

Though Queiroz has insisted that rankings aren’t really the defining factor and that India have improved as a team, it is clearly an uphill task for the Men in Blue against Iran, who will be looking to build on their 6-0 win over Guam in their previous match.