Flamengo's well-travelled coach Vitor Pereira seeks a way past Al Hilal in Club World Cup

Portuguese manager's veteran defence face challenge against Saudi club's pacy front line in semi-final

Flamengo's coach Vitor Pereira gives instructions to his players during a training session at the Prince Moulay El Hassan stadium in Rabat, Morocco, Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023. Flamengo will play against Al Hilal in a FIFA Club World Cup semifinal next Tuesday Feb. 7. (AP Photo / Manu Fernandez)

Soccer Football - Club World Cup - Flamengo Training - State Prince Moulay El Hassan, Rabat, Morocco - February 6, 2023 Flamengo coach Vitor Pereira during training REUTERS / Andrew Boyers

Flamengo coach Vitor Pereira during training for the Club World Cup. Reuters

Flamengo coach Vitor Pereira instructs his players during a training session for the Club World Cup. AP

Vitor Pereira during his time as coach of Corinthians during a Copa Libertadores quarter-final against Flamengo in August 2022. AP

Vitor Pereira during his spell as Corinthians coachin 2022. Reuters

Vitor Pereira during his time as Corinthians coach in 2022. Reuters

Vitor Pereira in 2022 during his time as coach of Corinthians. Reuters

Vitor Pereira pulled down the brim of his cap to shield against a bright North African sun. The manager of Flamengo, an all-weather manager with a CV that stretches across two hemispheres and three continents, was preparing his players for a tilt at club football’s summit.

As he enjoyed the clear skies and mild temperature of Rabat, he would have been forgiven for glancing back 12 months at how his fortunes have altered.

Pereira takes charge on Tuesday of the South American champions’ bid to reach the Club World Cup final, their opponents Al Hilal, the prize for victory a gold-medal joust with Real Madrid or Al Ahly.

Go back just over a year, and Pereira was a long way from here, a jobseeker stunned to see his name graffitied on a stadium’s outer wall in Merseyside, England.

“Pereira Out, Lampard In” said the spray-painted message, from Everton supporters responding to another turn of the merry-go-round that is the manager's position at their club. What was unusual about this protest was that it demanded the sacking of someone who had not even been appointed.

Pereira may think he had a lucky escape, having been high up the January 2022 shortlist to replace Rafa Benitez at Everton. He was keen, the Premier League club having also interviewed him twice in the previous nine years when there had been a vacancy – it comes around very often at Everton – but missed out again, to Lampard.

The rest is history. Lampard was sacked 51 weeks later and Everton last week made Sean Dyche their fifth manager in as many years.

Flamengo had by then given Pereira his third different job of a busy year for the Portuguese, entrusting him almost immediately with this Club World Cup, Flamengo’s reward for winning the Copa Libertadores last October under Dorival Junior.

Pereira, who has previously managed in Portugal, where he won several trophies at Porto; Greece; Turkey; Saudi Arabia and China, had just left Brazil’s Corinthians, who hired him soon after he missed out on Everton.

A storied, worldly coach then, for a Flamengo who ooze experience. Pereira should line up a back four including David Luiz and Filipe Luis, 35 and 37 respectively, defenders with a long shared history with Brazil’s national side and adventures with, among others, Chelsea, for whom Luiz was an adventurous central defender at a Club World Cup a full decade ago.

That was the last time a reigning European champion, as Luiz’s Chelsea then were, finished anything other than first in the pan-continental competition, Corinthians winning the final 1-0.

“A Club World Cup is a title missing from my collection,” noted Luiz ahead of Flamengo’s arrival in Rabat, “and I’ve been able to celebrate trophies with every club I have been at, which makes me grateful.”

That list of medals includes Portuguese, French and English league titles with Benfica, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea, plus a Europa League to go with his Champions League and membership of the select group of players to have won both a Copa Libertadores and a European Cup.

Luiz, enjoying what he called “one of the best times of my career”, has recently extended until December the 15-month Flamengo contract he initially signed after leaving Arsenal in 2021.

Also in pursuit of a first Club World Cup after a career of serial league titles with Juventus, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Inter Milan is Arturo Vidal, the combative Chilean midfielder whose mohican haircut is as distinctive as Luiz’s long ringlets.

But Vidal, who joined Flamengo from Inter last summer, would be less inclined to rank this chapter among his very best. He has tended to be used off the Flamengo bench more than in the starting XI, a pattern maintained since Pereira started in the job.

Last week, Vidal expressed his unhappiness at being left out in a Cup fixture against Boavista by angrily throwing water bottles from his seat in the dugout. He later apologised for losing his temper.

Flamenguistas, the club’s supporters, curious about Pereira’s developing relationship with senior players will monitor at what stage, if any, Vidal, 35, is asked to shield a defence Al Hilal have the pace and strength to trouble.

The Saudi club came back, dramatically, from 1-0 down in stoppage time against Casablanca’s Wydad to reach the semi-final after penalties, but the victory had costs.

Midfielder Mohamed Kano is suspended after being shown a second yellow card in a bad-tempered period of extra-time and the winger Andre Carrillo picked up an ankle injury.

Even so, Al Hilal should test the mobility of some of their veteran opponents with their counter-attacking and their invention on the flanks. And the duel between Moussa Marega, the centre-forward, and Luiz is one to relish.