Wolves have been handed a warning about incoming boss Vitor Pereira after he came up with a novel excuse to leave a previous job at Corinthians.
Pereira is reportedly set to take over at Molineux after Gary O’Neil was sacked in the wake of the team’s chaotic loss to Ipswich last time out. The 56-year-old will be charged with keeping the team in the Premier League after a poor start and arrives with plenty of experience after spells in charge of clubs all over the world including Porto, Fenerbahce, Corinthians and Flamengo.
Pereira has never managed in England before but has worked all over the globe ahead of his move to the Premier League. South American football expert Tim Vickery has provided some insight into Wolves’ new manager and revealed an interesting anecdote about how he joined Brazilian side Flamengo shortly after leaving Corinthians.
Vickery told BBC 5 Live Sport: “He did pretty well with Corinthians and they didn’t want to lose him at the end of the year but lose him they did. Because, and here it becomes a little bit sneaky and a little bit controversial.
Vitor Pereira was saying ‘I’ve got to go back to Portugal. Sorry I’ve love to stay, love to stay, but I’ve got to go back to Portugal. It’s my mother-in-law, she’s not well.’ And then the week after he left Corinthians, he signed for Flamengo in Rio, which is the biggest of big jobs. The one that everyone wants. He darkened his door a little bit there at Corinthians. I’m not sure that they’d welcome him back in a hurry and Flamengo certainly wouldn’t want him back. It was a strange decision by Flamengo to appoint him. As a result of winning the Libertadores, they were through to the Club World Cup.
It plays massively over here and Flamengo are thinking ‘Intercontinental. Real Madrid. Bring it on!’ We need a European coach to take on Real Madrid. So Flamengo sacked their coach, brought in Vitor Pereira, who suddently forgot the health of his mother-in-law, for the game against Real Madrid, but they lost to Al-Hilal of Saudi Arabia in the semi-final so didn’t even get that far. And from that moment, he was a dead man walking.”
Pereira arrives at Wolves from Saudi side Al-Shabab and is thought to have signed an 18-month contract with the club. He is expected to take charge of the side for the first time in a crunch clash against fellow Premier League strugglers Leicester on Sunday.
