Jorge Jesus Takes Over as Portugal National Team Coach

Jorge Jesus has been handed the Portugal job, stepping into one of the most scrutinised roles in international football after Roberto Martinez’s exit in the wake of a World Cup disappointment.

Martinez, in charge since the start of 2023, walked away after Portugal’s last-16 defeat to Spain on Monday – a familiar sense of underachievement for a nation that has not seen a World Cup semi-final since 2006. The federation has turned to experience, and plenty of it.

A serial winner with a restless career

Jesus is 71, but his managerial career has never really slowed. Across 36 years on the touchline he has built a reputation as a demanding, combustible, trophy-collecting coach. Two spells at Benfica, a dramatic switch to Sporting CP, a title-laden adventure with Flamengo, high-pressure stints at Al Hilal and Fenerbahce, then three straight seasons in the Saudi Pro League – his CV reads like a tour of football’s most intense environments.

He has the silverware to match the mileage. Twenty-five trophies as a manager. Three Portuguese league titles with Benfica. A Brazilian crown with Flamengo. The Saudi title with both Al Hilal and Al Nassr. Wherever he lands, the expectation is simple: win.

At Al Nassr, he walked straight into the orbit of Cristiano Ronaldo. Before taking the job last summer, Jesus admitted he “could not refuse the invitation” of the Portuguese icon to come and coach the club. The partnership delivered again: he guided the Riyadh side to their first league title in seven years, restoring them to the summit before departing at the end of the 2025-26 season. Ange Postecoglou has since replaced him there.

Portugal turn to an old hand for a new era

Now, instead of managing Ronaldo’s club career, Jesus inherits the national team in the immediate aftermath of the forward’s international farewell. Ronaldo, the game’s all-time leading international scorer with 146 goals in 233 appearances for Portugal, confirmed earlier this month he will not play at another World Cup.

That decision reshapes the landscape. For the first time in two decades, Portugal must build a World Cup project without the gravitational pull of their greatest player. Jesus steps into that void with a clear mandate: turn a talented squad into a ruthless tournament side again.

Portugal’s recent history shows flashes of that edge. European champions in 2016. Nations League winners in 2019, and again in 2025. Yet the World Cup continues to elude them at the business end. Quarter-finals, last-16 exits, frustration. The appointment of a coach as forceful and tactically assertive as Jesus is a clear signal that the federation wants a change in mentality as much as a change in face.

A coach in global demand

This is not a manager short of admirers. In March 2025, The Athletic reported that Jesus was among the leading contenders to take over Brazil, mentioned in the same breath as Carlo Ancelotti. Ancelotti ultimately took the Brazil job after leaving Real Madrid in May, but the link underlined how highly Jesus is regarded at the top of the international game.

His club career has never lacked drama. The most notorious moment came in 2015 when he left Benfica for their Lisbon rivals Sporting CP, a move that detonated one of Portuguese football’s fiercest rivalries. Later, in Saudi Arabia, he twice took charge of Al Hilal before crossing the Riyadh divide to Al Nassr, where he again proved he can walk into a pressure cooker and come out with a title.

Those experiences matter now. Portugal are not just planning for any World Cup – they are preparing to co-host the 2030 tournament alongside Spain and Morocco, with Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay also staging matches at the start of the finals. The scrutiny will be relentless, the expectations enormous, the margin for error tiny.

Jesus has built a career on thriving in exactly that sort of storm. The question is no longer whether he is big enough for the Portugal job. It is whether he can make Portugal big enough for a World Cup on home soil.