Meet the only coach who sent Carlos Valderrama to the bench, fought with Hernan Dario Gomez during a match, but also led Cucuta Deportivo to a historic title in Colombia and Costa Rica to the World Cup quarterfinals.
In Colombia, he is considered one of the most experienced and controversial coaches. It remains to be seen if the drama will be carried on in the middle east, as he was appointed the new head coach of United Arab Emirates last week. Can Jorge Luis Pinto take them to their second World Cup tournament?
Since he was young, Pinto was determined to be a coach without ever playing professional football. He studied physical education and graduated in Bogota University, then started to work as a physical trainer for local club Millonarios, under legendary head coach, Gabriel Ochoa Uribe. He later got more experience in Sao Paulo and at Koln University in the early '80s. During his time in Germany, he started to follow Borussia Monchengladbach, one of the best teams in Europe at the time. His professor at the University also worked as a physical trainer in Monchengladbach and Pinto would come to every practice with him.
When he was 32 years old, he already coached one of the best clubs in Colombia, Millonarios, back in 1984. Pinto, who was familiar with his discipline and toughness, brought a fresh talent from Union Magdalena – a player by the name of Carlos Valderrama. Despite being the one who brought him, Pinto didn’t like the lack of professionalism and immaturity of El Pibe and decided to bench him several times, despite his enormous talent. According to one version, Valderrama left Millonarios at the end of the season only because of Pinto, but in the past 'El Pibe' already said that he owes Pinto a lot from bringing him to Bogota.
Pinto proved his stature by leading Millo’s to finish in 2nd place that season. In 1989 he was in charge of Union Magdalena, a small club who, after a good season, stood a good chance to win the title. But Colombia in the ’80s was very different compared to present days, and when one of the league’s referees, Alvaro Ortega, was murdered - the league was cancelled. He had to wait until 1997 for his first title, leading Alianza Lima of Peru. He took the Costa-Rican club Alajeulense to win the title back to back (2002-2003). In 2006 he built a great team in Cucuta which was promoted to the Colombian first division, only to win a historic championship in the following season. In 2010 and 2011 led Deportivo Tachira to win the championship in Venezuela. Quite a talent.
National Teams Resume
His first experience as a national team coach was in 2004 with Costa Rica. His local success with Alajeulense led the local federation to appoint him. He led them to win the Copa Centroamericana but failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup. After three games he was replaced with Alexandre Guimaraes who took Costa Rica to their third World Cup in their history.
In 2007 he fulfilled his dream and due to his success with Cucuta, he was appointed to be the head coach of Colombia. Pinto failed his debut, as Colombia played horribly in the 2007 Copa America and was eliminated in the group stage for the first time since 1989. At this point, his relations with leading players such as Ivan Cordoba and Mario Yepes started to weaken as they didn’t like his tough attitude. They openly said it’s impossible to win when he’s in charge and announced that they won’t play in the national team as long as he is the coach. Despite the failure in the Copa, Pinto had a good start in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers and even achieved a prestigious win over Argentina, but two straight losses to Uruguay and Chile sent him home.
His main success came when he was chosen once again to coach Costa Rica in 2011. Once again he led them to win the Copa Centroamericana in 2013 and along with a good 2014 World Cup qualifying tournament, Costa Rica qualified to their fourth World Cup. They have been drawn to the group of death along with Italy, Uruguay and England and no one really gave them a chance, but Pinto is always a better coach when his team is the underdog. Costa Rica beat Uruguay and Italy, drew with England and finished at the top of the group. In the second round, they beat Greece in PK shoot-out and lost to the Netherlands in the quarter-final. Pinto became a hero and was voted one of the top five coaches in the world that year. But just like in Colombia, Pinto once again had differences with the team’s captain, Keylor Navas and the Ticos federation. Navas said that he won’t play in the national team again under Pinto and the Colombian coach quit his job after the federation didn’t allow him to bring his own staff.
His next stop was the national team of Honduras. Pinto replayed his Costa Rican miracle, took an underdog team and squeezed the best out of it. They didn’t do well in the 2015 Gold Cup and in the game against Panama, Pinto found himself in a physical fight with Panama’s coach, his co-patriot Hernan Dario Gomez. Eventually Pinto led Honduras to the fourth place in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, but Honduras lost to Australia in the playoff and didn’t qualify.
Pinto will start his new job after he failed with Millonarios, and for the first time he will coach outside the Americas. According to his philosophy, the fact that UAE is not among the favorites in Asia may help him. In his career, he succeeded mostly when he wasn’t the favorite side. He is a great motivator, likes to defend well, to play counter-attacks, and with the potential he has in the national team they can see themselves give the fight to qualify for the 2022 World Cup and the 2023 Asian Cup. The UAE made it to the World Cup only once, back in 1990. These days, after four matches in the qualifiers they are in fourth place with two wins and two losses.
Will Pinto be crowned a hero once more?
Photo courtesy of Jorge Luis Pinto’s Twitter account.
