Top drawer international football manager who is on a quest is Portuguese’s Abel Ferreira who commands Palmeiras Football Club. The coach has now equaled Oswaldo Brandão as winner of the most championship trophies of all time. Both have ten titles each for Palmeiras.
As Abel’s English teacher I have noticed how he aims for perfection. He understands the need to create rules or principles widely accepted as obviously true and not needing to be proved. In other words, he goes out of his way to make everyone around him feel special. Like Jose Mourinho, Portuguese legendary coach has been branded, “the special one”, Abel treats players and all those working at Palmeiras with much more than dignity because he puts himself in their shoes, analyses their predicament by being down-to-earth, and connecting unreservedly. Those around him like him, no question!
Abel is not short of international clubs running after him to replace flagging coaches who can’t deliver. He was sought by Al-Sadd from Qatar for a long stretch and multi-million-dollar contract, but he ended up wanting to stay at Palmeiras and continue his success which went hand in hand with his family who have settled into the Brazilian way of life.
According to O Jogo, Abel will earn €12m (net) for the duration of the contract until December 2025, a remarkable increase on his first contract signed three years ago which paid around €1.2m per year. The Portuguese paper says there is a release clause of €8m.
I can’t substantiate if there is any truth to what the Portuguese newspaper is saying, but what I can tell you is Abel told me something extremely authentic coming from someone who has such high esteem for all the employees at Palmeiras.
He negotiated a deal for all the staff from toilet cleaners to canteen workers, from ground operators to auxiliary employees at the training center, and across the board got all 270+ a 10% salary increase. That’s the kind of coach Abel is; someone who sticks his neck out to help those around him. Without a doubt, that’s a lot more than I can say about most people!
If anyone puts themselves out there to help others succeed then they deserve success. Abel deserves to negotiate himself a good deal. Abel has brought prestige to the club because he’s a championship winner!
Take care!
Prof. Carl Boniface
Vocabulary builder:
Top drawer (n) = (British informal) used in reference to high social position or class. "George and Madge were not out of the top drawer." (adj) = of the highest quality or social class. "a top-drawer performance"
Quest (n) = mission, expedition, pursuit, search, hunt, journey
Down-to-earth (adj) = practical, realistic, sensible, matter-of-fact, pragmatic, no-nonsense, (ant) fanciful
Unreservedly (adv) = totally, completely, wholeheartedly, unconditionally, enthusiastically, absolutely, frankly, utterly, openly, talkatively, chattily, (ant) reticently
Flagging (adj) = weakening, fading, waning, wearying, failing, dwindling, abating, diminishing, declining, (ant) growing, rising
Sticks his neck out (idiom) = if you stick your neck out, you bravely say or do something that might be criticized or might turn out to be wrong.
[informal] “I've earned a reputation as someone who'll stick his neck out, a bit of a rebel.”