Questions about Rene Simoes

[Ken S]

I have already started a thread on this in the Caribbean subforum, but since this spot seems to get more traffic, and Simoes was also with Honduras, I will try here as well.

I am a Canadian soccer fan and there is speculation that Rene Simoes will be named Canada's new Head Coach, and possibly also Technical Director, in the next week or so. Obviously, Canadian soccer fans want to know more about him so I am looking for information on him from Jamaica, T&T, and Honduras fans that you can't just find on wikipedia or similar sites that I can pass on to other in a Canadian soccer forum outside of bigsoccer. Facts, opinions, and gossip are all welcome, so . . .

What is he like as a coach?

What are his tactics like?

How is his player-management skills?

Why did he leave his previous posts (fired? quit? poor performance or personal conflicts)?

How did you rate him as a coach?

Should Canada hire him?

Anything in his background that would make him a good choice as Technical Director?

Thank-you for any information that you can provide.

[Antonio81]

Simoes did a very good job with Jamaica. He started out from scratch and took them to the World Cup. The first thing he did was to take them to his native Brazil and have them play local club teams, before they started their qualifying run. He was strict and instilled discipline in the team, and didn't let the Jamaican federation(although they kept trying) interfere with him. When a player stormed off the field in the middle of the Jamaica Mexico loss, he suspended him for a while, despite the federation pressuring him not to.

In the final round of qualifying, after beating Honduras and Mexico, they started to struggle, and in a masterful move, he scouted the EPL for players of Jamaican decent, and brought back four(one of the Deon Burton who became a star), and Jamaica came on strong and qualified for their first Cup. He did go overbaord with this and kept calling in a bunch of English-born Jamaicans in the World Cup warmups and the federation got on hi again for it.


They finished fourth in the 1998 Gold Cup after a historic draw with Brazil. At the World Cup, they managed to beat Japan in a well-played game. Jamaica also went 52 straight matches unbeaten in their national stadium in Kingston. They were able to beat Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Canada, and Colombia and drew with the USA and Nigeria. He also kick-started a stream of Jamaican players going to the EPL and other leagues around the world. They still consider him a national hero there.

[MetroChile]

Good assessment, Antonio, though I disagree with Burton being a "superstar". Maybe for the Jamaica NT, but he never lived upto expectacions in the EPL, and even in that succesful WCQ for Jamaica I think he scored 5 goals (but he still led Ja. in goals). Other than that, veryy good 411. :)

Metro

[Antonio81]

Yeah, He never was anything special in England, Simoes was able to make him a superstar because he had a Jamaican father. After he scored the goals that took Jamaica to the World Cup they treated him like a God there.