The Portuguese Artur Jorge is one of the nominees for the traditional award for best coach in the Americas, offered since 1986 by the Uruguayan newspaper El País. The Botafogo coach qualified to compete for the Libertadores and Brazilian Championship titles.
The commander has four opponents: Argentines Gustavo Costas, Gustavo Alfaro and Lionel Scaloni and Uruguayan Diego Aguirre. Costas was nominated after leading Racing, from his country, to the Copa Sudamericana title, defeating Fernando Diniz’s Cruzeiro – the current winner of the award. Alfaro, who started the year at the head of the Costa Rica national team, is undefeated at the head of Paraguay. Scaloni led Argentina to win another Copa América. Aguirre reached the Libertadores semi-finals with Peñarol, in addition to being champion of Uruguay.
Meet the five finalists for the 2024 Best Trainee Award in the America Poll and respond to El País https://t.co/0x6RfXMxyz https://t.co/0enU2rHBCj
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Artur Jorge could be the second European to be named the best coach in the Americas. Also Portuguese Abel Ferreira won in 2021, after leading Palmeiras to their second Libertadores championship.
Coach Alviverde, in fact, was the first non-Brazilian to win the award representing football in the country. Sebastião Lazaroni (1989), Telê Santana (1992), Luiz Felipe Scolari (1999 and 2002) and Tite (2017) also won.
King and Queen
The newspaper El País also includes the best players on the continent, both men and women, with the King and Queen of America awards. This year’s nominees are yet to be announced. The men’s honor also appeared in 1986. The current winner is Argentine center forward Germán Cano, from Fluminense. In five of the last ten years, the winner played in Brazil.
Women’s voting debuted in 2021. Last year, striker Priscila, at the time at Internacional and now at América, in Mexico, came out on top.
