Carlos Queiroz is still one tournament short of matching the record for coaching at the World Cup, but the 73-year-old will still enter the record books this week.
Queiroz takes charge of Ghana as they begin their Group L campaign against Panama in Toronto on Wednesday, continuing a run that began with Portugal in 2010 and saw him also coach Iran at three successive World Cups in 2014, 2018, and 2022.
The run matches the record of five consecutive tournaments set by Bora Milutinović from 1986 to 2002, when he was at the helm of five different national teams.
Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira holds the record for the most World Cup appearances as a coach, with six, but not consecutively.
Queiroz was not scheduled to go to the tournament in Canada, Mexico, and the United States until April, when Ghana appointed him in place of Otto Addo, who was fired in March after a series of disappointing friendly results.
Before the sudden call from the Ghanaians, it looked as if his long career, including coaching Real Madrid and working as Alex Ferguson’s assistant at Manchester United, had ended, with his last job in Oman, the eighth different country whose national team he had taken charge of.
His cerebral and technical approach contrasts with a bellicose demeanour on the pitch, where he can sometimes look like a pantomime villain, although others have found him uninspiring.
“I felt he had the personality of a dead fly when I worked with him,” said former Manchester United captain Roy Keane.
Queiroz is hailed in his native Portugal as a trendsetter, laying the foundation for their prodigious youth output.
“In a country where greatness is so often measured by the result of the next match, Queiroz deserves to be remembered for something deeper – the construction of a culture that still endures of bringing the knowledge of universities to the pitch and, thus, contributing to Portugal being recognised as a training ground for elite footballers,” the daily sports newspaper A’Bola commented last month.
He made his name when leading Portugal to back-to-back U-20 World Cup titles in 1989 and 1991, bringing on a generation of outstanding footballers like Luís Figo, Paulo Sousa, and João Pinto, and is now looking to crown a storied career by taking Ghana as far as he can at the World Cup.
“I am prepared for this,” he said when he accepted the job. “I bring 40 years of experience to every decision that will be made.”
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