Monday, January 30, 2005

 

I want to thank the Minnesota fans that suggested we collect donations to help bring Portuguese striker Hugo Almeida to the Thunder.  It's a nice gesture, although I have to tell you that his transfer fee would be about four times our entire yearly budget - and that's not even including his salary! 

However, if you are still interested in helping out the Thunder and its new head coach, I would suggest that you send a check to the "Some-punk-stole-my-mountain-bike-from-my-garage-this-summer-and-I-need-a-new-one" fund.  While not nearly as skilled and athletic as Almeida, the bike would be environmentally sound and quite fast (I heard Almeida drives a diesel sports car). Those checks can be sent to the Thunder office care of Coach Magee.

The head coach at Academica de Coimbra is Nelo Vingada.  This guy has done it all.  Besides running sharp and intense training sessions, he is just about the nicest guy I've been around and his players, it seems, both like and respect him, a tough balancing act for a professional coach. 

Vingada was Carlos Queiroz“s assistant coach with the Portuguese youth national teams that won consecutive world championships at the U19 and U21 levels. Queiroz is the associate head coach of Manchester United and former coach of Real Madrid. They developed what is considered the golden age of Portuguese soccer with players like Luis Figo, Rui Costa, Victor Baia, Joćo Pinto etc. Vingada also coached the Portuguese Olympic Soccer Team in the 1996 Olympic Games.  His team finished fourth, the highest placing European team at the Atlanta games. 

He coached the Saudi Arabian team into the 1998 World Cup although he was replaced after qualification had already been secured because he wouldn't replace a player at halftime and play the Crown Prince's preferred player instead.  The guy is full of these stories that will make your jaw drop. He also coached Zamalek, one of the great Egyptian club teams, to an undefeated season, the first one in Egyptian club history.  He has had success all over the world at the club and national team level.  Known as "prof," he is the quintessential coach and teacher.

The best part of my stay in Coimbra with Academica was the conversations after training that took place with Prof.  We talked tactics, philosophy and he told stories, plenty of stories.  He was very knowledgeable about American soccer and took quite an interest in how the USL First Division is progressing.  We outdraw several of the Portuguese Super Liga teams and he was stunned to learn of the box-office success of Rochester, Montreal, Portland and Vancouver.

As we sat later into the day after an afternoon training session, I asked Vingada what I deemed an important question, "How does a modest, yet successful club like Academica (Thunder), handle the loss of its best goal scorer Marcel (Menyongar) to the richest club, Benfica (Rochester) without its coach Vingada (Magee) losing his mind?"  He laughed, shook his head and smiled, "That is football, no?"

Amos

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Minnesota Thunder head coach Amos Magee departed for Portugal on Saturday for a two week stint where he will be visiting some of the best soccer teams in Portugal. He will be spending a week with Portuguese First Division team, Academica Coimbra. Magee will also be attending training sessions at Benfica and Sporting Lisbon. Magee is looking to build a partnership with some of the teams in Portugal to form a relationship and allow some top players the opportunity to come to the United States to play with the Thunder.