{"id":290989,"date":"2021-04-08T18:35:08","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T21:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=290989"},"modified":"2021-04-08T18:41:06","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T21:41:06","slug":"brazilian-coach-gets-saudi-team-into-first-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/brazilian-coach-gets-saudi-team-into-first-division\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazilian coach gets Saudi team into First Division"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Football coach Lu\u00eds Ant\u00f4nio Zaluar of Rio de Janeiro has been coaching the Saudi Arabian football team Al Akhdoud since 2019. Last Saturday (3), the team (pictured above<\/em>) won a national championship game, moving from the Second to the First Division after thirty years.<\/p>\n

The team is based in Najran, in southwest Saudi Arabia, near the Yemen border. Zaluar relies on a staff of fellow Rio natives: fitness trainer Carlo Flavio Socha, goalkeeper coach Luciano Almeida and physical therapist Andr\u00e9 Amorim.<\/p>\n

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Zaluar and players during team practice<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are two Brazilian players on the team \u2013 striker Taylon, of Minas Gerais, and midfielder Kak\u00e1 Mendes, of Cear\u00e1. Both are 27. All other players are Saudi. This is the Brazilian players\u2019 first time working in Saudi Arabia, but Zaluar has coached nine different teams across the Gulf since 1987, with stints in five other teams in Saudi Arabia, two teamsw in the UAE and one team in Qatar.<\/p>\n

Thirteen Brazilians have been living in Najran since July 2019, between staff\u2019s and players\u2019 families. Last year there was a hiatus: \u201cWhen the pandemic began, the championship got suspended and we had to go back to Brazil,\u201d the coach told ANBA over the phone from Saudi Arabia. In March 2020, Brazil\u2019s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Marcelo Della Nina, arranged a repatriation flight for 181 Brazilian nationals. According to Zaluar, 160 of the passengers on the flight were football players and their families.<\/p>\n

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From left to right: Zaluar, Luciano, Taylon, Kaka, Andr\u00e9, and Carlo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In May 2020, Al Akhdoud players and staff got called back into Saudi Arabia, where they have been ever since. The championship final will be played on Friday (8), and Al Akhdoud needs a tie against Bisha FC to win the title. The match will air on this link<\/a> at 2:45 pm, Bras\u00edlia time.<\/p>\n

But what has already been achieved is more important, said Zaluar. \u201cWe have been on this two-season project since 2019, and last Saturday we managed to get the team on the First Division, which is akin to going from the B to the A Series in the Brazilian championship. Tomorrow\u2019s match isn\u2019t as important. Getting into the First Division was much more important than winning the championship,\u201d he said, pointing out that Al Akhdoud had been in the second tier for over thirty years.<\/p>\n

Ambassador Della Nina attended the game on Saturday and witnessed the crucial win. \u201cAccording to Zaluar, this was the first time a Brazilian ambassador ever went to Najran. \u201cWe grew close during the repatriation flight episode. The ambassador found out about our work and our efforts, and we invited him to watch the game,\u201d the coach said.<\/p>\n

Zaluar said the Saudis are ecstatic. \u201cThey\u2019re still celebrating, and [management] is very pleased with our work. That\u2019s what they got us on board for: to get them into the First Division.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Brazil’s ambassador to Riyadh, Marcelo Della Nina (center) with Zaluar and his wife Alessandra<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The coach and all Brazilians in Najran got their first shot of the Oxford vaccine on March 15. They are waiting to get the second shot before going back to Brazil, in case their contracts do not get renewed for the next season.<\/p>\n

Zaluar claims that \u201cliving conditions have improved a lot\u201d in Saudi since he first came to the country in 1987. A self-taught Arabic speaker, he has been able to communicate well since the year 2000 but cannot read or write. While learning the language, he created a handwritten dictionary of over 5,000 words. \u201cThey understand me fine, I have no problem getting through to them. I did take a course to learn English, but when it came to Arabic I taught myself the hard way,\u201d he quipped.<\/p>\n

Zaluar said dozens of Brazilian coaches have worked in Arab countries, but they lost space to Europeans and Arabs (from Egypt and Tunisia) in the past ten or fifteen years. \u201cWe hadn\u2019t been in such high demand, and after [Brazil lost a FIFA World Cup match at home] 7 to 1, virtually no Brazilian coaches were coming over anymore. Now, little by little, we\u2019re getting our space back. It\u2019s been a struggle. There are four Brazilian coaches in Saudi Arabia right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Press Release<\/div>\n
Personal Photo Collection<\/div>\n
Press Release<\/div>\n
Personal Photo Collection<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lu\u00eds Ant\u00f4nio Zaluar of Rio de Janeiro has been coaching the football team Al Akhdoud since 2019. Last Saturday (3), the team qualified for the First Division after 30 years by winning a national championship game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2305,"featured_media":290955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[19958,11910,19957,3260,31204,43147,9595,2541,19959],"class_list":{"0":"post-290989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-al-akhdoud-en","9":"tag-arabia-saudita-en","10":"tag-coach","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-futebol-en","13":"tag-futebol-saudita-2-en","14":"tag-saudi-arabia-en","15":"tag-soccer","16":"tag-zaluar-en"},"wps_subtitle":"Lu\u00eds Ant\u00f4nio Zaluar of Rio de Janeiro has been coaching the football team Al Akhdoud since 2019. Last Saturday (3), the team qualified for the First Division after 30 years by winning a national championship game.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}