By Melody Gross 
Vitor Sereno is the Portuguese ambassador to Japan and criticized, on Linkedin, the “smallness” of Fernando Santos after the deselection in Qatar. Luis Santos, the manager and son of the coach, responded
Portugal was eliminated from the Qatar World Cup after losing to Morocco in the quarter-finals of the tournament, in a context characterized by the Ronaldo case and Fernando Santos’ choice to remove him from the starting lineup. Reactions followed one another, many of them critical of the coach’s choices, but one gained special weight: Vitor Sereno, Portugal’s ambassador to Japan, wrote on his career page. on linkedina very serious text by Fernando Santos, saying that “He will emerge from the bottom, hostage to his tactical impotence, fear, inconsistency, but above all to his smallness.🇧🇷
The ambassador’s general position, written in that capacity, ends up being prejudiced by the State Department as well. And this is exactly what prompted the director of the Alpac fund, Luis Santos, son of the Portuguese coach, to respond to the ambassador. Commenting on Sireno’s “post,” Luis Santos wrote: “the master. The ambassador is entitled to his opinion. But writing openly and freely about the “smallness” of a person who has done so much for his homeland may not be worthy of the position he occupies.🇧🇷 Until now, the official position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the suspension of the ambassador to Japan is not known.
Posted by Victor Sereno
In the “post”, which contains over 110 comments at the time of publication, Vitor Sereno criticizes Fernando Santos harshly. 🇧🇷A coach who didn’t know how to lead when he had everything to do. As European Champion and winner of the First Nations Championship, he made history forever. Personally, I would have voted and pushed for circuit lanes across the country to be named after him (…) The FPF’s insistence on Fernando Santos is unhealthy and vice versa. Clinging to the situation and not immediately making the job available (just look at Luis Enrique, Tite or Roberto Martinez) are symptoms,” he says. He also adds a critic, Fernando Gomez, president of the federation, whose term ends in 2024. Fernando Santos did not reveal his future and referred the decision to a conversation with Fernando Gomez.
In contrast to the criticism of Fernando Santos, the Portuguese ambassador to Japan (and former chief of staff to Miguel Rivas in the government of Pedro Passos Coelho) praised Cristiano Ronaldo. 🇧🇷The only person, so far, that I have seen trying to paradigm this constant state of depression, alternating with states of euphoria, was Cristiano Ronaldo. The best ambassador of Portugal (I know them all: he is unparalleled) and the only one who has never been ashamed of assuming that we, the Portuguese, when we want to, get to the top of the world🇧🇷
In another implicit reference to Fernando Santos, Vitor Sirino wrote that “Cristiano is a lot more than Portugal, and that bothers us deep down. It’s easier to put ourselves through mediocrity than excellence – I had an older colleague, many years ago, tell me Not to work so hard because he has forced others to do the same or better…”.
in commenting on “MailBy Vitor Sireno Luis Santos challenges the ambassador in a provocative way: “There is a lot of work to be done in the relationship between Portugal and Japan. We count on you to carry it out with as much commitment and efficiency as our team that took us to the quarter-finals of the World Championship, for the third time in its history, and relegated On his feet. And, in particular, the same amount of commitment and competence as Mukhtar ‘Sukhar’ (his words) the only two trophies in the nation’s football history.”