Queiroz ‘bought ambulances in Mozambique’ after he was fired as SA coach: De Sa

It is easy to put Roger De Sa’s pending involvement at the 2022 Fifa World Cup down to his “connections” and overlook the man’s capabilities.

After all, the three-sport SA international will be in Qatar thanks to his good relationship with Carlos Queiroz. The Portuguese coach has once again called on De Sa to be his right-hand man for a national team coaching job after Queiroz’s recall to the Iranian squad that he led to both the 2014 and 2018 World Cups. Given the two men are of Mozambican descent, the temptation to see it all as Quieroz giving his “compatriot” an opportunity is irresistible.

But De Sa says nothing could be further from the truth.

“Carlos and I are not buddies. I’ve never been to his house, and he has never been to mine,” the former Orlando Pirates coach said.

“And the whole thing that we are connected by being born in Mozambique is also not true. We have never spoken about our Mozambican roots because there’s nothing there really. Carlos was born in Nampula [in northern Mozambique] some 11 years before me, and I was born on the other side of the country in Maputo, and I only lived there for a while.

“We were just born in the same country, but there’s not a lot of common ground there.”

What then is it that binds the two?

“It’s all about coaching. Carlos respects me as a coach. He appreciates my outlook on the game and believes I am of great help to him. We are similarly passionate about the game and our styles are complementary.

“While I’m more attack-minded, he is a bit more defensive but very calculating as a coach. And he is open to my opinions and I have learnt a lot from him over the years. I’ve been a willing student of his.”

So De Sa won’t be going to Qatar as Queiroz’s “ball boy”.

“We began working together when he became Bafana Bafana coach in 2000, and even back then as a young goalkeeper coach I never felt like a ball boy. He is an experienced coach who believes in himself and is thus not threatened by those around him. Instead he gives you a lot of responsibility to run the team.”

For Iran, De Sa’s responsibilities will range from scouting to preparing training camps, sessions and coaching.

Queiroz, who led Iran to first-round exits at the 2014 and 2018 World Cups, was only reappointed to the role last week, replacing Croatian Dragan Skočić after Mehdi Taj was elected as Iranian FA president last month, returning to the position he held from 2016 to 2019.

This will be De Sa’s fourth role coaching with a national team, and his second in a World Cup campaign. He assisted Queiroz as coach of Egypt as they reached the final of the Covid-19 delayed 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) in January, losing on penalties in the final to Senegal.

The former Bafana, Moroka Swallows and Bafana, Mamelodi Sundowns goalkeeper started his coaching career with Bidvest Wits. He coached Ajax Cape Town and Platinum Stars among others, and steered Pirates to a defeat in the final against Al Ahly in the 2013 Caf Champions League final. Apart from working with Queiroz with SA from 2000 to 2002, the pair also worked together when Queiroz coached Portugal in the 2010 Fifa World Cup in SA.

Queiroz and De Sa are spending a few days in Tehran with the squad ahead of friendly matches in Austria, working through the selection process for the final squad then preparations for their opening World Cup Group B match against England on November 21 in Al Rayyan.

“This is going to be a tougher job than what we had in Egypt because unlike there, Iran has a lot of players overseas,” De Sa said.

“In Egypt we only had about five outside the country, so it was easy to keep tabs on how the players were performing. Now I know I am going to be doing a lot of video streaming to see how the players are doing, and communicating with their club coaches and medical team to check their progress. I suspect there’s going to be a lot of travelling too.”

Such, however, is the life of a national team coach preparing to compete on the game’s ultimate stage.

“The World Cup is a massive event, and you see it in how the players and coaches get excited to be part of it. To be going to another one as a coach is huge for me.”

De Sa could have well been going to his third World Cup had the SA Football Association (Safa) not fired Queiroz and his technical team after a quarterfinal placing at the 2002 Africa Cup of Nations in Mali, having qualified Bafana for the 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan.

“Oh that,” De Sa recalled with a laugh. “You know how SA football is. We were disappointed when we got fired. We’d reached the quarterfinals in Mali and were not expecting to be fired.

“We had qualified for the World Cup after a draw with Liberia — the first team on the continent to qualify that year. And we were saying, ‘Fantastic, after the Afcon we will start planning.’ But typically, everyone stepped in to try to take the glory. It was very sad.”

Jomo Sono took over as interim coach and led the country in their second World Cup appearance.

How did that affect Quieroz?

“It was very sad how everything was done. But Carlos took it like the gentleman he is. Do you know he took the payout from Safa and went and bought ambulances for Mozambique? That’s just how he is.”

Apart from Bafana, the duo worked together for the national teams of Portugal and Egypt. De Sa was also a player scout for former Real Madrid manager Queiroz during the Portuguese’s tenure as Manchester United coach under Sir Alex Ferguson. “He asked me to go to the 2006 Nations Cup in Egypt to help see if there were some exciting players they could get for Man United.”

The pair’s disappointment at missing out on World Cup qualification with Egypt, also against Senegal, and losing to the Lions of Teramga via the shoot-out at the Afcon are in the past. De Sa was minding his business with his family in Cape Town when Queiroz called about the Iran gig and he grabbed it. “Carlos had asked me to work with him during his first spell in Iran, but my kids were still very young and I wanted to be around them. But now, there was no way I was going to turn this down.”

Iran are in Group B alongside England, US and Wales. It is a tough group, and the Middle East side will definitely be the bookmakers’ whipping boys. De Sa believes they could pull off some surprises.

“Knowing Carlos, he will make sure Iran go to Qatar confident they can progress from the group stage.”

You can bet the man who has represented SA internationally in football, indoor football and basketball would have made a telling contribution to that.