Luís Pimenta (football manager)

Luís Berkemeier Pimenta (born 25 September 1981) is a Portuguese football manager.

Luís Pimenta
Personal information
Full name Luís Berkemeier Pimenta
Date of birth (1981-09-25) 25 September 1981 (age 43)
Place of birth Lisbon, Portugal
Managerial career
Years Team
2011–2013 Hønefoss (youth coach)
2014 Hønefoss (assistant)
2014–2016 Kongsvinger
2018 Brommapojkarna
2019 Riga
2020–2023 Norway U18+U19

Personal life

edit

Pimenta was born in Lisbon, Portugal to a Portuguese father and a German mother.[1] At the age of 5, he moved to Luxembourg with his family.[2]

Managerial career

edit

At 15, Pimenta decided that he wanted to pursue a career as a football manager, and completed all his UEFA training courses. From Luxembourg he returned to the Portuguese capital to study human kinetics at the university. During his degree course, he went to Liverpool to learn psychology and football science, as well as deepen his knowledge of English. Back in Portugal, he met Gonçalo Pereira, destined to be his deputy for the years to come. After finishing the course, Pimenta and Pereira entered the technical staff of Rui Jorge at Belenenses. At the same time, Pimenta worked at the Academia Carlos Queiroz in Carnaxide.

In October 2011, Pimenta was invited to manage the youth academy of the Norwegian club of Hønefoss, being also an assistant for the first team, where they reached the best classification in the club's history in 2012, under the lead of Leif Gunnar Smerud. He became the assistant manager of Roar Johansen in 2014, but they were both released that year.[3]

In September 2014, he became the manager of Kongsvinger replacing André Bergdølmo, where Pimenta got his first experience as head coach.[4] He helped the team getting up from the 3. divisjon to the 2. divisjon 20 points ahead of their closest rivals. The next year, Kongsvinger finished in fifth and qualified for the promotion playoffs and, more surprisingly, made the 2016 Norwegian Football Cup final, losing to Rosenborg BK.[5] At the end of the season, he declined renewal offers and left the club.[6]

After a year off, Pimenta became the head coach of the Swedish club IF Brommapojkarna in the 2018 Allsvenskan, after two seasons of successive promotions by Olof Mellberg. Again, he brought Gonçalo Pereira along as his deputy.[7] In August 2018, some players came forward, although under anonymity, to reveal an alleged leadership influenced by racism, penalism and sexism.[8][9] Despite an internal investigation concluding that the accusations were false, as stated since the beginning by Pimenta,[10] him and his two assistants reached an agreement with the club for the termination of the contract.[11] Two days after Pimenta’s departure, Brommapojkarna's sport’s director, Daniel Majstorovic, resigned,[12] disagreeing with the way the club handled this situation, and emphasizing that the accusations were false.[13] Pimenta signed with the Latvian club Riga in February 2019, but left a month later on 2 March.[14]

In the summer of 2020 he was appointed as coach of Norway U18 and U19.[15] In March 2023, Pimenta led Norway U19 to qualify for the 2023 UEFA European Under-19 Championship, where they reached the semi-final.

References

edit
  1. ^ NRK (19 November 2016). "Pimenta sikter mot drømmen".
  2. ^ "Pimenta já é uma lenda na fortaleza de Kongsvinger - Maisfutebol.iol.pt".
  3. ^ "Hønefoss sparker treneren". 5 June 2014.
  4. ^ "Var høyaktuell for KIL allerede i vinter". 1 September 2014.
  5. ^ NRK (20 November 2016). "Helland og Rosenborg lekte seg til cupfinaletriumf".
  6. ^ "Suksesstreneren ferdig i Kongsvinger". 12 December 2016.
  7. ^ "Portugis tar över BP". 13 December 2017.
  8. ^ "Anklagar tränaren för pennalism och sexism". Aftonbladet. 31 August 2018.
  9. ^ "Ble beskyldt for rasisme, sexisme og fryktledelse. Slik svarer han på anklagene". Aftenposten. 3 September 2018.
  10. ^ "Pimenta svarer for mobbeanklagene:-Det viktigste nå er at sannhetene kommer frem". VG. 3 September 2018.
  11. ^ "press release". Brommapojkarna. 6 October 2018.
  12. ^ "Majstorovic lämnar klubben omedelbart". Expressen. 6 September 2018.
  13. ^ "Absolut inte funnits rasism eller sexism". Expressen. 5 September 2018.
  14. ^ "Officiellt: Pimenta har sagt upp sig - efter bara en månad: "Stor överraskning för alla"" (in Swedish). Fotbollskanalen. 6 March 2019. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  15. ^ Madsen, Christer (24 July 2020). "Pimenta ny G18/G19-landslagstrener og topptrenerutvikler" (in Norwegian). Football Association of Norway. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
edit