Andre Villas-Boas Factfile

Andre Villas-Boas was born in Porto, Portugal on 17 October 1977.

Andre developed a passion for football quite early in his life and his interest was partly aided by the fact that Bobby Robson had moved into his apartment block, Villa-Boas being just 16.

He sent a letter to Robson outlining why he should be playing Domingos Pacienia. Robson was so impressed by Villas-Boas' passion and knowledge of the game that he sent the Porto native off to Lilleshall in England to get his Uefa C Coaching license. At the time the legal age for such a license was 18 but Robson pulled some strings and got Villas-Boas the head-start that he craved so much.

After he completed his coaching courses, Robson employed him as part of Porto's youth team scouts and Villas-Boas remained at Porto when the 'Special One' Jose Mourinho arrived. Mourinho obviously saw something very special in Villas-Boas and he chose the now Chelsea manager to head the 'OOD' department at Porto. The 'OOD' was simply the 'Opponent Observation Department' which consisted of Boas drawing up a secret-style dossier on opponents that Mourinho's men would be facing in the coming days. He mimicked the feat at Chelsea when Mourinho brought him to London, including this dossier in a match against Newcastle back in 2005. Mourinho tried bringing his fellow Portuguese man when he left for Inter Milan but Villas-Boas refused the offer and decided to try his hand at management signing a contract at Portuguese Premiera side Academica de Coimbria in late 2009. Academica had failed to win any of their seven league meetings at the time of signing Boas but things were about to change.

In his first season in management, Villas-Boas guided them to a respectable 11th, a decent league outcome considering they were teetering in the doldrums at the beginning of the season. He also guided them to a semi-final in the Portuguese League Cup, eventually losing out to FC Porto thanks to a late goal from Mariano Gonzalez.

However, Porto president Pedro Pinto had seen something in Villas-Boas' exciting brand of football while in charge of Academica and snapped him up in June of last year, hoping he could steer the club back to the top.

Villas-Boas broke many records at Porto, whilst still in his first season coaching the club. For starters his Porto side carried through the Primeira Liga without a loss, accumulating a record-breaking 84 points on their way to being crowned champions. He now also holds the record for the youngest manager ever (33 and 213 days) to have won a European trophy following Porto's success in the Europa League final against Braga in Dublin back in May. These feats inevitably put him on the map for all the top European sides and after a lengthy spell with Guus Hiddink dominating the headlines, Villas-Boas landed the Chelsea job on Wednesday 22 June, the Londoners paying in excess of £13 million for the services for the Portuguesian.

Villas-Boas has been repeatedly likened to Jose Mourinho for the way he entered the football world (both of them never playing professional football, both coaching Porto to League and Europa/Uefa Cup success) but the 33-year-old insists that he will not be a 'one-man show' unlike Mourinho.


"I was appointed for human qualities," Villas-Boas told Chelsea TV on his arrival. "I don't see the game as a one-man show, I see the game as the getting together of collective ideas and good players. "The most important thing is to motivate the players to get their ambitions right, to reflect again on what the club has achieved in the last six years and we need to keep this route to success.

"It is a clashing together of two good organisations and in the end it is the relationship between all of our players that can lead us to success, and that is what I want to work on."