I don’t throw flowers at people

PAULO Autuori describes football as a way of life. As he hails from Brazil, the temple of football, it could well be treated as a customary remark. Like many of his countrymen, success has underlined his personality and charisma in the world of football, but the way the 55-year-old perceives it makes him stand out.

And his philosophies, self-belief and professional approach make him a true master.

A forthright personality, Autuori is always driven enthusiastically forward by his concepts which, he says, are built on realities.

The manner in which he transformed Al Rayyan from a mediocre group into a fearless winning unit over the last four seasons has been creditable. However, the real and rather silent revolution happened on the backstage, which saw him groom many talented youngsters. It won him the coaching mantles of the Qatar Olympic team, a task involving altogether different challenges.

What made him take up the job and how he plans to go about the job? Hear from Autuori, who spoke to Doha Stadium Plus in an exclusive interview.

 You were linked with a move to Internacional in Brazil, but you joined the Qatar Olympic team in a surprise move…

Ever since I came to Rayyan four years ago, I’ve received offers from different clubs and countries. And some of them were worth giving a thought. In the close season, Sao Paolo had approached me while a few weeks ago, Internacional were keen on signing me. They’re two strongest teams in Brazil.

I’m proud to have received the offers because I had worked at both clubs. But it’s impossible to move out because I’ve a contract with Rayyan (with the Qatar Olympic Committee) till the end of the season. I received a surprise invitation to take over the Qatar Olympic team after Simondi (Bernard) left and I found it interesting.

  The third round of the 2012 London Olympics Asian Zone qualification is round the corner. What’re your priorities?

I don’t want to talk about Olympic qualification alone. Basically, I’m not interested in short-term projects. I believe we must take a detailed look at football in Qatar and analyse it if we want to develop it.

I had made the Rayyan management realise the importance of focusing on youngsters with my programme and a similar approach should help develop youth football in the country. I believe so. If you don’t take care of youth football and don’t develop players in the right way, a team can’t go far forward.

 You reportedly insisted on getting a five-year contract… 

I never asked for a long-term contract, even though it’s true that you need time to work in youth football. You need to make the right steps. I believe in Qatar’s vision for football and am confident I can help with my own concepts and style.

If everyone associated with the Qatar Olympic team works together, believing fully in my concepts, we should be able to do a productive job.

 What’re those concepts?

People think just because Qatar has an ASPIRE Academy, things will fall in place all of a sudden. But in youth football, you need to respect the long process. There’re several good things which can catalyse the growth of Qatar football. But even those things alone are just not enough to get instant results.

Several other factors, like food habits, rest, training methodology, are to be considered. But equally important is the spirit of sacrifice and endurance. Qatari players have to realise the importance of those two aspects and it’s the responsibility of the coaches and others close to the players to make them realise their significance.

ASPIRE and the Qatar Football Association (QFA) are encouraging the game in a big way. We must review the whole process and should make some adjustments here and there on a daily basis. After all, nothing in the world is perfect.

 If you compare Jorge Fossati’s team with that of Sebastiao Lazaroni, the core group of players in Qatar’s senior national team remains the same and not that many youngsters are coming in. It isn’t the case with other countries…

You should never compare Qatar with other countries. It’s altogether a different case. Qatar is a small country and the number of players is quite limited. Take the UAE for example. It’s a big country which means more kids are playing football there and more players to choose from. This is a specific reality.

The only thing we can do is to try hard to perform well, accepting the realities. The goal should be to do some introspection and eventually bridge the gap with other countries.

 Could you explain?

Conceptually, I let people know my style at Rayyan. Everybody knows that Rayyan gave plenty of chances to young players to be on the field. It happened just not last season, but ever since I went there. I used players like Murad (Negi), (Hamad Al) Abidi, Abdulkareem (Ali) in my first season in important tournaments like Emir’s Cup.

All our efforts bore fruits and we saw Rayyan, with only young Qatari players and no foreign professionals, beat Emirates club hands down in this year’s AFC Champions League. Everybody was paranoid at the time of kick-off, but we all believed in ourselves.

Around the world, big teams sometimes suffer against inferior rivals with better competitive spirit. I too tried to prove it, not by words but deeds. But the Rayyan management had patience. The problem is people think that by providing good conditions to players or by the QFA or ASPIRE taking earnest efforts, things can be quickly changed. It isn’t right.

I’m a person who never throws flowers at people, either through beautiful words or gestures. We need to be realistic. If toughness is the need of the hour, we must talk tough and act tough, especially if we can make the players and ourselves a lot mentally stronger. That’s one step. I can give quite a few leads. Let’s see.

But the national football team management doesn’t seem to be patient enough…

My primary job is to make the responsible men take a retrospective look at what happened in Qatar football over the last few years.

And I also look forward to doing different things. After all, this is our life. We need to learn from various experiences, both personal and professional, in our life. It’s a challenge.

We must be humble enough to understand when and where we went wrong, and try to take a different step if needed. That’s why I spoke about concepts in the beginning. When I speak about it, they’re always based on realities. But to make the cut, we need patience.

I’m here because I’m confident of doing many things for Qatar football. I stayed in this country because Qatar gave me so many things during the last four years.

 Exporting players should also be a priority, but clubs seem to be reluctant despite players getting offers from Europe?

When you’ve chance to send players to different countries, especially of a higher competitive level, you should send them. When he comes back to the Qatar national team, he’ll raise its overall level. It happens around the world. Just look at Japan and you’ll realise the progress they’ve made over the years. They continue to export a lot of players.

For that, the youngsters need to love football. At Rayyan, I used to tell my boys that we aren’t playing just for fun and to kill time during weekends, but in a professional League to achieve highest competitive level.

Everybody around the globe wants results. But when you stumble at the first hurdle, we should think of ways to overcome it. It isn’t by making wholesale changes, but through some adjustments.

I need to send signals to the federation on a daily basis that things are progressing in the right way. Also, we need to concentrate a lot on little things because that can make big difference.

Doha Stadium Plus