Paulo Bento Biography

Paulo Bento, born 20 June 1969 in Lisbon, is a Portuguese football coach and former professional footballer. During his career as a footballer, he played for Benfica, Sporting Lisbon and Real Oviedo, among others. He was also a member of the Portuguese national team and has played 36 times. At the moment, he is working as the head coach of the South Korea national team.

Between 2005 and 2009 Bento was the manager of Sporting CP. He resigned on 6 November 2009, claiming that he could not get anything more out of the group of players. Following the 2010 World Cup, he succeeded Carlos Queiroz as Portugal's national team manager.

He took the national team to the semi-finals of the 2012 European Championship in Poland and Ukraine. The Portuguese team was knocked out by defending champion Spain, which triumphed 4-2 in the penalty shootout. Both teams had finished 0-0 in regular playing time plus extra time.

On Sunday 7 September 2014, Bento lost the first match in the qualifiers for the 2016 European Football Championship with Portugal at home 0-1 to Albania. Just four days later, Bento and the national football federation terminated their working relationship, and he was replaced by Fernando Santos.

All You Need to Know About Paulo Bento Biography

Following his departure, Bento worked as the manager of Cruzeiro,

and then the Chinese club Chongqing Lifan, before being named head coach of the South Korea national team in 2018, a position that he has held up until now.

Paulo Bento Information

Now that we know the Portuguese coach much better, in this section of

Paulo Bento biography

we will share more general information about him such as

Paulo Bento nationality

to let you know him even better.

Paulo Bento Bio

• Full Name: Paulo Jorge Gomes Bento

• Nickname: Papa-Taças

• Profession: Professional Football Coach

Paulo Bento Physical Stats

• Weight: 74 Kg

• Height: 1.74 m

• Eye Color: Dark Brown

Paulo Bento Football Information

• Position: Defensive Midfielder

• Jersey Number: 17

• Professional Debut: 1988

Paulo Bento Date of Birth and Personal Info

• Date of Birth: 20 June 1969

• Zodiac Sign: Gemini

• Nationality: Portuguese

Birth Place: Lisbon,

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Paulo Bento biography

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Paulo Bento childhood

.

Paulo Bento Early Life

Paulo Bento began his playing career in the Palmence youth team, before moving on to

. But he failed to make his debut in two years and left for Estrela da Amadora. In his first season with the team Bento played in the youth squad, but then he made his debut in the first team and helped the club to win the first trophy in their history - the Portuguese Cup. By the 1990/91 season, Paulo Bento was already a regular main squad player, having played 25 games.

During the summer of 1991, Bento joined Vitoria. The player seriously improved his level of play there, becoming an invaluable player in the centre of the pitch. In 1994, he was noticed by one of the leading clubs in Portuguese football, Benfica, which he joined later. Having spent two years at Benfica and winning the domestic cup, Bento travelled to Spain, to join

. He spent 4 seasons there and was team captain.

Paulo Bento returned to Portugal in 2000 to join Sporting Lisbon after Oviedo were unable to reach an agreement with Benfica over the transfer of the midfielder. At the same time, he could not play for the club for the first six months because of his suspension in all UEFA competitions. With Sporting, Bento played 4 seasons, winning the Portuguese league title, the Cup and the Super Cup with the club. In 2004 he finished his playing career.

Now stay tuned to this section of

Paulo Bento biography

as we want to share some info about his Portugal career as a player.

Portugal National Team

Bento made his Portuguese national team debut on 15 January 1992 in a friendly game against Spain, which ended in a 0-0 draw. Afterwards, he made a further 34 appearances for the national team.

In the 2000 European Championship, he was part of the Portuguese side winning the group stage, but was beaten in the semi-finals by France because the assistant referee of the game, Igor Schramke, had called a foul in the penalty area and a penalty kick was awarded; at the end of the match, Bento, unhappy with the actions of the touchline referee, spat in Schramke's face. For his actions, Bento was suspended by UEFA for 6 months.

After two years, Bento made an appearance at the 2002 World Cup, in which Portugal was knocked out already in the group stage. It was at the same tournament, on 14 June 2002, that Bento played his last match for the national team, losing to South Korea.

Paulo Bento Profile

Paulo Bento launched his coaching career with the Sporting youth team, the club with which he ended his professional career. The team got off to a very promising start, winning the league title in its first season.

José Peseiro stepped down early in the 2005-2006 season after a 1-0 home defeat to Académica Coimbra on Matchday 7 of the Liga Sagres. The club had already suffered three defeats and was knocked out of the Champions League in the preliminary round by Halmstad.

The club appointed Paulo Bento as coach in place of José Peseiro. Initially, there was some concern about his inexperience and this seemed to be a strange choice.

Paulo Bento's first game was a 2-2 draw against

. However, following a 3-2 defeat at Braga SC in the last match of the first half of the season, Paulo Bento and Sporting enjoyed a very good second half that put them back in the title race.

A 12-game unbeaten streak with 10 consecutive victories allowed them to come back just behind

at the time of the 30th matchday. However, unfortunately for them, they were beaten 1-0 at home by a Jorginho goal in the 85th minute, thus putting an end to their last hopes of the title.

He also guided his team to the semi-finals of the Portuguese Cup, where "Os Leões" were knocked out by FC Porto in a penalty shoot-out after leading in extra time through a goal by Liedson and an equaliser by South African Benny McCarthy for Porto.

In the next season, Paulo Bento got off to a great start with an excellent pre-season with wins in warm-up matches against Benfica (3-0), La Coruña (1-0) or Sevilla (4-2). Additional results against Huelva (3-0) or

(0-0) promised a good season for Sporting fans.

Indeed, with two victories in the first two games in the league and a 1-0 win against Inter Milan in the

, the feeling was even stronger. Sporting finally ended up in 4th place in the Champions League as a result of a completely disappointing final match (1-3 home defeat against Spartak Moscow) although they did well in their matches against Inter Milan (1-0, 0-1) and Bayern Munich (0-1, 0-0).

In the league, Sporting came second, only one point behind FC. As a result, Paulo Bento was the first coach to qualify Sporting for two consecutive Champions League seasons without going through the preliminary round.

He won his first trophy as head coach on 27 May 2007, when he defeated Belenenses in the Portuguese Cup final 1-0. This ended a five-year run without a trophy for the

.

However, the 2007-2008 season turned out to be much more difficult. Although the club started off well with a 1-0 Super Cup win over FC Porto, the club's signings soon proved to be disappointing. In fact, Derlei and Pedro Silva were badly injured, Purovic was not up to the expected level and goalkeeper Stojkovic failed due to disciplinary problems.

The press and the fans criticized Paulo Bento harshly because of his failure to win the away games, but the good performance in the Champions League appeased the critics of the coach. Sporting finished 3rd in their group with 7 points (2 wins against Dynamo Kiev and a home draw against

). As a result, the club was sent back to the UEFA Cup.

The club eliminated FC Basel and Bolton Wanderers, before being defeated in the quarter-finals by Glasgow Rangers, which was one of the finalists in the competition.

At the end of the season, Sporting won 5 of their last 5 games and ended up in 2nd place, ensuring a third consecutive qualification for the Champions League. They also had a great campaign in the Portuguese Cup, beating rivals Benfica in the semi-finals in an epic match that ended 5-3, and in the final they won the Portuguese Cup for the second time in a row, beating FC Porto 2-0.

While Sporting's 2007-08 season has been much criticised, it is noteworthy that it has broken some records: no home defeats in the league (first since 1987), the first time the club has won two successive Portuguese Cups since 1974, and the first time Sporting has managed three consecutive second places in the league.

Sporting's 2008-09 season saw them advance to the last eight of the Champions League, thanks in part to victories over FC Basel and Shakhtar Donetsk. However, it was a painful elimination, where they lost 12-1 on aggregate to Bayern Munich.

The club finished second in the league behind FC Porto. He extended his contract with the club for two more seasons in June 2009. On 6 November 2009, he stepped down from his position due to an increasing number of poor results.

Now stay tuned to this section of Paulo Bento biography as we want to share some info about his career as Portugal national team coach.

Portugal National Team

He officially became coach of Portugal on 20 September 2010, taking over from

. In the Euro 2012 qualifications, Portugal finished second in their group, three points behind Denmark. They only managed to qualify for Euro 2012 after winning the playoff against Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In Euro 2012, after finishing second in Group B alongside Netherlands, Denmark and Germany, they were able to eliminate the Czech Republic in the quarter-finals, before losing to Spain in the semifinal match, which finished 2-4 for Spain in the penalties.

To qualify for the 2014 World Cup, Portugal was drawn in Group F of the World Cup qualification Europe, where they finished second behind Russia and only managed to reach the World Cup after beating Sweden 4-2 in the playoff.

In the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, they finished only third in Group G, behind Germany and the USA and above Ghana. On 11 September 2014, nearly four years after his appointment, he left his post following a failed World Cup and a disappointing start to the Euro 2016 qualifiers. However, Bento led Portugal to the semi-finals of Euro 2012.

Cruzeiro

Bento was appointed head coach of Brazilian club

on 11 May 2016. He signed the contract until December 2017. His appointment made him the third foreign coach in Cruzeiro's history and the first from Europe. However, Bento stepped down as head coach on 25 July following the defeat to Sport Recife, who were in second-to-last place in the national championship at the time.

Chongqing Lifan

In December 2017, Paulo Bento took over as coach of

Football Club, playing in the Chinese Super League, in a bid to improve the club, but he was sacked 6 months later on 22 July 2018 after a series of poor results including six consecutive defeats.

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.

South Korea

In August 2018, the following month, he was named coach of the South Korean national team. In the 2019 Asian Cup, he guided Korea to a first-place finish in Group C, where they won all of their matches against China, Kyrgyzstan and the Philippines. In the Round of 16, they eliminated Bahrain, only to lost 0-1 against Qatar in the quarterfinals.

In the 2022 World Cup qualifiers in Asia, Kore was in Group 8 with the likes of Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Turkmenistan and North Korea, where they finished first, thus qualifying for the third round. There, Korea is drawn in Group A alongside Syria, UAE, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon.

Style of Play

While his main playing system in almost all of his teams was the 4-2-3-1, after taking charge of Korea and playing with that system in many friendly matches and also the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, he decided to try out other formations and since then we have seen them play with 3-5-2, 4-3-3, 4-4-2 and some others.

Reception

Bento is considered by many football fans and pundits as one of the most talented football coaches of Portugal and believes that he has what it takes to establish himself amongst the best Portuguese football coaches of all time.

Paulo Bento outside Football

Since he retired from playing football and starting a career as a coach, he has fully focused on his new career and therefore, he has no other business outside of football. In his spare time, he spends more time with his family.

Paulo Bento Personal Life

In this section of Paulo Bento biography, we will take a deeper look into his personal life and share some information about things like

Paulo Bento life story

and

Paulo Bento religion

, stay tuned.

Family, Children and Relationships

Paulo Bento has been married for more than 20 years to Teresa Bento with whom he has two daughters: Sofia, 27, and Marta, 24. In many interviews, he had said that becoming a father has changed him a lot.

Philanthropy

Paulo has been an active part of many charity events during his career, for instance, he took part in a charity match between retired footballers of Germany and Portugal in June 2014 in Essen, Germany.

Legal Issues

At the time of writing this article, there are no reports of any legal issues or disputes regarding Paulo Bento on the English or Portuguese media.

Paulo Bento Career Statistics

In this section of Paulo Bento biography, we will take a deeper look into his career stats, both as an international and club player.

Club

Between 1988 and 2004, Paulo Bento has played a total of 488 matches in all competitions at the club level and scored 26 goals.

International

He was a member of the Portuguese national team for ten years between 1992 and 2002, during which he played 35 matches and failed to score a single international goal.

Managerial

As of 13 June 2021, Paulo Bento has managed his teams in a total of 344 matches, in which he achieved a win ratio of 57.85 percent with 199 wins, 79 draws and 66 defeats.

Paulo Bento Honors

During his time as a player, Bento managed to win all major Portuguese trophies including Taça de Portugal, Primeira Liga and Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira.

When working as a manager, he has so far won Taça de Portugal, Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira, Superleague Greece and EAFF E-1 Football Championship, among others.

He was voted CNID Breakthrough Coach in the 2005-06 season when he was coaching Sporting CP.

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