{"id":538051,"date":"2026-07-22T05:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T05:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/538051\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T05:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T05:24:08","slug":"exclusive-portuguese-manager-set-to-land-auckland-fc-head-coach-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/538051\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Portuguese manager set to land Auckland FC head coach role"},"content":{"rendered":"

Auckland FC have been on the hunt for a new coach since mid-June, when Steve Corica\u2019s departure was confirmed<\/a>. The popular Australian had a year remaining on his contract but agreed a release with a club, after an offer from Japanese heavyweights Yokohama F. Marinos. Corica was in demand after his achievements in Auckland, where he won the Premiers Plate in the inaugural season<\/a>, before the unforgettable grand final triumph<\/a> in May.<\/p>\n

\"PedroPedro Moreira has been linked to the head coach role at Auckland FC. Photo \/ AFP<\/p>\n

Moreira has a long tenure as an assistant coach under Paulo Fonseca, who was a respected professional in the Portuguese game, with more than 100 matches across five different clubs in the top tier.<\/p>\n

The most notable outfit Moreira has worked at with Fonseca were AS Roma, where he was an assistant with the Italian giants for two years between 2019 and 2021. The duo also spent time at Porto \u2013 one of the biggest teams in Portugal \u2013 and Shakhtar Donetsk, who have won the Ukrainian Premier League on 16 occasions and are regulars in European competition.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Moreira got his first head coach role, at Liga Portugal 2 side Torreense. The 51-year-old then had a stint at Portuguese first-division club Casa Pia and has also coached in Uzbekistan with Pakhtakor in the 2024-2025 season, when they finished second in the league.<\/p>\n

Moreira has almost 15 years of top-level senior experience behind him, with more than a decade in youth roles before that, including time at Sporting Lisbon, most famous as the first club of Cristiano Ronaldo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer Auckland FC coach Steve Corica, who resigned in June to take up an opportunity in Japan. Photo \/ Photosport <\/p>\n

Portugal has long been recognised as a talent factory for coaches. The most celebrated is former Chelsea, Real Madrid and Inter Milan supremo Jose Mourinho but other notable names have been Ruben Amorim, Andre Villas-Boas, Fernando Santos, Marco Silva and Nuno Espirito Santo. The latter manager helped to revitalise All Whites captain Chris Wood\u2019s career at Nottingham Forest<\/a> and took the iconic midlands club to seventh place in the Premier League.<\/p>\n

When contacted by the Herald, Auckland FC chief executive Nick Becker said he was unable to discuss what remains a \u201cconfidential process\u201d but provided the following statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have conducted a thorough search for our next head coach and have been extremely impressed with the quality of the candidates. We hope to make an announcement regarding the new head coach soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Burgess<\/a> has been a Sports Journalist for the New Zealand Herald since 2005, covering the Olympics, Fifa World Cups, and America\u2019s Cup campaigns. He is a co-host of the Big League podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Auckland FC have been on the hunt for a new coach since mid-June, when Steve Corica\u2019s departure was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[51,6326,1320,1017,26845,260756,2219,305,106,19720,93,17154,111,139,69,96560,205,24352,1551,213,165,61,377],"class_list":["post-538051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-auckland","tag-biggest","tag-coach","tag-exclusive","tag-fc","tag-footballing","tag-gone","tag-have","tag-head","tag-land","tag-manager","tag-nations","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-portuguese","tag-role","tag-secure","tag-set","tag-sports","tag-their","tag-to","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}