Swansea City's new assistant manager is relishing working with Paulo Sousa at the Liberty Stadium.
Linking up with the Portuguese legend in South Wales, Oliviera who studied sports science at the University of Porto, is confident that one of Portugal's “Golden Generation” can bring a new era of success and development to Swansea .
Looking back at the career of one of his childhood heroes, the 31 year old has certainly been a little nostalgic since his arrival in Swansea and has cited Sousa's achievement of being the first of his compatriots to pick up a champions league winners medal with Juventus as being one of the pioneers of the game in Portugal, as he told the Western Mail with great fondness, he said,“Paulo was a brilliant player. He was a legend in Portugal. When I was a little boy and when I started playing football he was my hero. He was a national hero because he was one of the first Portuguese players to go abroad when he went to Juventus.”
“When he won the Champions League it was a massive thing for the country because we hadn’t had a Luis Figo or Cristiano Ronaldo at that point. He was a member of our golden generation.”
“But he is someone who invested a lot of time at the end of his playing career because he knew he wanted to be a manager. And he has the will and the knowledge to achieve the same level as a manager as he did as a player.”
Vastly ambitious, the player turned coach has learnt from some of the greats of the European game. Spells in England under Sir Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and under Portuguese national team coach Carlos Queiroz the mild mannered coach will have acquired a vast amount of knowledge over the years.
Tasting Scudetto success in Italy under Sven-Goran Eriksson at SS Lazio on the last day of the 1999/2000 season, Oliviera's playing career was certainly less glittering that his mentor Sousa. Sustaining a double cruciate ligament injury to his knee at the age of 21 he was forced to retire from the game, but his family all of whom are either PE teachers of trained sports scientists there was little doubt that the up and coming coach would go into the game.
“I had a university background so it was important for me to have this experience. I also spent two years at Lazio because they were the top team in Europe then and that time with Sven was important. These times benefited me as a coach.”
Demanding nothing but perfection from his team the new look regime at the club will certainly bring passion, a hard working ethos and a massive contacts book to boot, the Lisbon based coach added, “We have built up a good relationship. He is someone who works very hard, is very passionate and very demanding and also thinks about football every minute of the day.”
“His network of contacts is incredible with some very important managers, for example he has direct access to Jose Mourinho. So we can look forward to working together again. "
Sacked by QPR following Sousa's departure from the club in April of this year, Oliviera is adamant that the duo did a good job at Loftus Road under the glaring view of the Hoops board, he said, “We did not have very long at QPR, but it was an experience and a good one because I think we did a good job in the conditions.”
Swansea City are expected to finalize the new look management team in the next five days with Yorkshire born fitness coach John Harbin expected to be appointed as well as a European scout and goalkeeping coach.
For full story click here: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/footballnation/swansea-city-fc/2009/06/25/bruno-oliveira-backing-paulo-sousa-to-make-big-swansea-city-impact-91466-23969673/