David Sullivan has tonight interviewed his first managerial candidate at his Essex mansion. The Daily Mail have published photos of Shakhtar Donetsk manager Paulo Fonseca with his agent Jorge Mendes arriving at the Chairman’s house.
Fonseca and Mendes flew into Luton this afternoon before being photographed arriving at Sullivan’s pad at 6.35pm, they were photographed again leaving 75 minutes later.
Fonseca started his coaching career with Lisbon-based side Estrela da Amadora’s youth team – who he was in charge of for two years.
A period of moving around Portugal followed that over the next few years, most notably with Pinhalnovense, who he guided to two Portugese Cup quarter-finals. Fonseca led Aves to third place in the Portugese second division in 2011/12 before moving to top-tier Pacos de Ferreira for one campaign, also leading them to third place and Champions League qualification.
That, in turn, led to a high profile move to Porto – although that came to a sour end just 10 months into his tenure as he was sacked following a poor run of results which had left his side nine points away from league leaders Benfica.
A return to Pacos de Ferreira followed for the 2014/15 campaign before a move to Braga in the 2015/16 season – leading them to fourth place in the league and a Portugese Cup triumph.
It is during Fonseca’s time in Ukraine that he has really come to the forefront of attention. The Portugese manager took over at Shakhtar Donetsk in 2016 for his first spell in management outside his native country – and got off to a brilliant start overseas.
He won a clean sweep of honours in his first campaign in charge of the Ukrainian club winning the league, cup and super cup.
Aside from team honours, he also collected the personal accolade of being named the Ukrainian Premier League coach of the year for his performances in charge of Shakhtar.