“I left Atleti because I needed to stop to be with my family”

“At 39, Tiago Mendes maintains the easy laugh of a child, but enough experience to know that in football nothing is guaranteed.” Thus, with that phrase as an entry, a long interview begins with Tiago Mendes in the Expresso Grandstand from Portugal in which the exrojiblanco reviews everything. Childhood, football, life, current affairs in the Portuguese Federation, arrival at Atlético, march, until his time at handball. Little given to interviews, he is one of those people who, when he speaks, must be listened to. He was already a soccer player. At Atlético he left an indelible mark. Seven years in which he got to make the word infinite real. Is it so.

Childhood

I have a brother four and a half years younger. My mother was a kindergarten teacher and my father worked at a beverage distribution company. I grew up in the “Capitães de Abril” neighborhood in Viana do Castelo. There were many children in the neighborhood and we all went out on the street, I played soccer all day. He was a restless child. My aunt nicknamed me Tom Sawyer (laugh). I had a very happy childhood.

Football connection

Rui Casaca, who was the captain of Boavista and is now the sports director of Braga, is my father's cousin. Since I had good soccer skills, I had many colleagues who called me Casaca.

Idols

I was never an idol. I don't remember having posters in the room or enjoying watching soccer on TV. There were players who liked him, but he was older, like Zidane, but at first he had no idols. When I was a child I was from Porto. My mother is from Benfica, my father and my brother from Porto.

Beginnings in Vianense

It was the only closest option, it was the city club. I went with my father, he was the one who took me to train. I was 10 years old, if I'm not mistaken, but practically only the weekend. I reach an age, if I am not mistaken in the initiates, when there was only one team and first and second year initiates. At that time there were so many, so many children, that the coach felt the need to start making training calls and there is a call that they don't call me. He was still a freshman. I got home and told my father that I no longer wanted to go to Vianense to play soccer. I was upset (laughs). And that year I decided to play handball. Goalkeeper. I had many colleagues playing, the club was called “Capitães de Abril”, it was from my neighborhood, and I decided to go. I loved. I spent a year without playing soccer, just playing handball.

Back to football

A year later, my uncle, who is training the youth of Âncora Praia, invites me to go train with him. I was still playing handball, I was in the handball federation, but I started to train soccer once or twice a week. And that's when I really made the big jump. At 15 I quit handball and definitely went to Âncora to play soccer. While playing with 18 year olds, I took a big leap. The difficulty helped me because, at the age of 15, having to play against young nationals from Braga, Guimarães, Chaves, etc., made me grow.

Jump to the Braga

They asked me to go there to train for Easter, one week. They liked it and the following year I went to Braga. I was 16 years old. I was lucky to have an aunt in Braga and I stayed at her house. Braga is next door, but at that time it was not so close. New school, new friends. It was a completely different reality. The weekend after playing, I always came to Viana and on Sunday night I went back to Braga. There I did not feel so much difference in football, because I was used to playing with 18-year-old players and when I went to Braga I played with players my age, 16, so it was easy for me to stand out.

Debut in the Braga

It was against Alverca. It was great. I immediately played the title. It was a dream come true, but at the same time it seemed like everything was happening naturally. Looking back, I see how difficult it is for an 18-year-old to start in the first game of the championship. It was incredible. I started making money in soccer when I went to Braga, at 16 years old. 200 euros. I remember going to lunch often with my girlfriend. Being able to nibble and give her a little gift was amazing. What I did next was save money to buy a house.

Arrival at Benfica

At that time, some businessmen started calling me, talking about clubs, and I called José Veiga. “They are calling me, I am not going to say who, but they are talking about clubs.” After a week, José Veiga organizes that business where Ricardo Rocha and Armando Sá go to Benfica. Armando and I in December and Ricardo Rocha at the end of the season. His call was an immense happiness. I really wanted to go. Benfica at that time was going through difficult times, but it was Benfica. The change was great. It was complicated. I remember the first weeks at Benfica that I thought, “What am I doing here?” Because the atmosphere in the locker room was complicated. The results did not help, there was a lot of division in the dressing room and it was a difficult time. In Braga everything was a family, there was a great unity.

Jesualdo Ferreira's influence

More serious, more distant, but also with incredible quality. He asked me for more things. In the first conversations he had with me, he told me that Benfica was not Braga, that he could not be just the player who recovers and passes, that he had to play from area to area, that he had to score goals, make assists. He was a coach who pushed me a lot and made my game evolve a lot.

Goals then

Honestly no, because I always had the goal of going abroad. I can say today: I always had the goal of going further, reaching Benfica was not the end. It never occurred to me, because in my head it was more, more, more, more and more. The games he watched the most on television were the Champions League finals. I always had a dream to play and win a Champions League. I always thought that abroad I would have more opportunities to achieve it.

Camacho

Camacho arrived in the second season of Benfica. It was a great change. The locker room was very broken. We had no working conditions. Camacho really was what Benfica needed at the time. Since he was a leader, he was against everything and everyone. He was a leader that even the president of Benfica, Luís Filipe Vieira, needed. I'm sure it was a great help even for the president, because Camacho was already used to great teams, he had already trained Real Madrid, he had been a great player at Real Madrid, he was used to difficult environments. He was the leader we all needed at the time. In the two and a half years that I spent at Benfica, we had a very strong Porto on the other side, which UEFA won in the first year and in the second in the Champions League, it was two years for Mourinho. A super strong Porto. We managed to win a Portuguese Cup, but not the league. But remembering the difficulties we had, without a field to train, playing in Jamor, I am sure that Benfica feels that this team was a team that put Benfica back on the road to success. I think it started there, honestly.

Death of Miklós Fehér

It was the most difficult moment of my life. I soon realized that he was dead. When I saw it, I saw it completely lifeless. I can't explain it, but it was … I had never seen anyone dead, but I had the feeling that I was no longer responding to anything, that I was completely on the other side. And it was very, very difficult. All year long have your locker there and miss it. His locker was not removed, his shirt was still there. In our day to day it was its place and every time we entered the locker room something was missing.

Benfica departure

It was complicated, yes. The previous year I did a championship in which I scored some goals and at that time Barcelona seemed interested and wanted to go. Camacho said he didn't even think he would have to stay for next year. And the president of Benfica said the same. They said it was not time for me to leave, that I would have to stay. So it was. They promised to increase my salary as a major player that I was. And I accepted, because I was fine, it wasn't bad at Benfica, and if they were going to really appreciate me … I was happy. But this salary increase throughout the year never came. The following year the opportunity came to go to Chelsea and I did my best to leave.

Chelsea

I remember receiving the call, we were still in the Alcochete rally, in Euro 2004. My departure was difficult, because I really forced the exit. I spoke with the president, with the coach, and I told them that this was the moment, that there were things that had not been achieved in the previous year and that now they had to let me out. It was complicated, it was not easy for the clubs. For Benfica because he lost a player who is a starter. It's money exchange, but they had to go find someone who had the same income and earned as little as I did. It was not easy. I think what made me leave was the fact that José Veiga was joining Benfica at the time, and I had problems with him when I decided to sign with Jorge Mendes.

Why he changed Veiga for Mendes

After going to Benfica, he was not happy with the way Veiga handled things. It had to do with my signing the contract. When I signed it, there were things that I did not like and I decided to leave José Veiga. There are some problems at that time. When a player leaves a businessman, the businessman believes he has the right to have the player and I think he even went to court, at least I received a letter. But it came to nothing. At the end of that championship, José Veiga joins Benfica as director. It was one more reason for me to leave. A person who had taken me to court, who had created problems for me after I left him … I didn't want to have to deal with him on a daily basis. It was one more reason to leave Benfica.

Adaptation to England

It was complicated, more for my wife. I was already pregnant with our first child. He is 22 years old and it was a complicated move to London. Not so much for me, because we, the players, are going to train, we have lunch at the workplace, if we want, and then we go home. But in England at three in the afternoon, in winter, it is already night. A person comes home, looks outside, it is night, it is raining and where are we going? For our women it is complicated. They feel alone. There is not much to do because the city is huge and we didn't know anything. We were very young when we left the country. The luck was that there were more Portuguese: Ricardo Carvalho, Paulo Ferreira, André Villas-Boas. I loved English football. Faster and more physical soccer, where there were not so many stops, so many fouls, I loved it, I loved it, I loved it.

Mourinho

At that time he was ahead of everyone else. It was a feeling to enter a game and know that we were going to win, that everything was going to be fine, that we knew the opponent … and I did not see many games in England, when I entered one, the work of Mourinho and André Villas Boas was So good, I had the feeling that I knew the player I was going to face so well that it gave me a lot of confidence. It was an incredible year, Chelsea 50 years later was champion again. And there is the merit of Mourinho, which takes, if I'm not mistaken, ten new players, which is not easy for any coach. But still, he manages to form a fantastic team and group of men and we managed to be champions in the first year. Be champion and win the League Cup.

World Cup 2006

So many things … It was fantastic, I loved it. I'm going to tell a story, I don't think I ever talked about it. If I remember correctly, those were the times when, now that I remember, I got more nervous. About three weeks before, we were preparing for the World Cup, and everything was very easy in my mind, who was going to play in midfield, it would be Maniche, Deco and Costinha. Since training I didn't think anything would change that. And in the first game of the Worlds, I am very calm in the conference, listening to Scolari, who starts giving to the team, and suddenly says my name (laughs). And I, who was there a little distracted, suddenly listened to Tiago and remembered that my heart began to beat so hard, so loud (laughs) … I had not prepared myself psychologically to play that game. I was not ready to hear my name. I really thought I wasn't going to be a starter. From the moment he says my name, it was incredible nervousness until I understood that he was going to play in the first game of the World Championship (laughs).

Juventus

At that time, the interest of Juventus and another Italian club appears, I think it was Milan. Juventus reaches an agreement with Lyon and I made the decision to go to Juventus. At that time it was a difficult time for Juventus, because they had dropped out of the division due to that problem with Moggi and that was the first year they went up. Juventus wants to step up and hire me. Another new experience, another challenge. In Italy it was difficult. I was used to a type of soccer and I come to Italy and soccer is completely opposite. In the clubs where I was, the ball always passed through the center of the field, the ball always passed through my feet, and when I arrive in Italy I cannot find myself. It is a much more direct game, Ranieri liked the transition more, I felt lost. It is a game system that I was not used to, I had played all my life in 4-3-3 and there I was playing in 4-4-2. I felt I was behind to get the ball from the centrals, the centrals hit the front and I went to win the second ball and when I got there, the ball was no longer there. I felt lost and, honestly, it was not a football I was ready to play. Then I started to think that I had to go. In the first year. Crazy. I wanted to leave soon, I went to talk to the coach. For the first six months, he always said he wanted to leave. His reaction was “OK, in December you can go if you want”. In other words, my relationship with Ranieri was really complicated at first. We didn't even say “good morning” to each other. It never happened to me like that.

Athletic Interest

In this winter market, I soon try to leave. And where did you want to go? I wanted to go to Spain. I wanted to try Spanish football, what I was missing, and I really wanted to play in Spain. What happens? Atlético de Madrid appears, who wanted to lend me six months, with a purchase option if they were in the first four places. They would buy me for the amount that Juventus had paid for me, those 13 million. Except that Tottenham who loves me and pays Juventus the 13 million at the time. Juventus, of course, wanted to sell me to Tottenham because they immediately received the money they had invested, they lost nothing. But I didn't want to go to Tottenham (laughs). I wanted to go to Atlético, because the family did not want to return to England. My wife tells me that she doesn't want to go back to England and I want to go to Spain, so she told Juventus that she would not go to Tottenham. Until Juventus said “you are not going to Tottenham, you are not going to Atlético, you are going to stay here”. And it stayed like this, I stayed six more months, I thought six more months. I thought he would stay until the end of the season and then leave. But the end of the season is coming and the only thing that appears is Everton (laughs). It is David Moyes who loves me, but I did not want to go to England. Even at the end, Monaco appears who wanted my loan. The last day of the market arrives, we still went to play a game in Rome and I stayed in Rome to be able to travel to Monaco in case it was necessary, but things do not happen and I return to Turin and end up staying at Juventus for one more season . As the fifth option.

Bad moment

No, the first was the worst moment, because the expectations were so high, from the fans, mine, from the club, that it was a total massacre in the newspapers, every day. My worst moment in football, as a player, was the first. In the second, there were no expectations, they had signed other players for the position and I was the fifth option in midfield. So there was no pressure at all because they didn't even consider me anymore. Since I am not going to Monaco, Ranieri comes to me and says “I will let you train with the first team.” I thanked him and said that I was not going to have any problems and that I was training with the first team, knowing that it was clearly the fifth option. He himself had said “you are the fifth option”. I kept training, without any pressure because I knew it didn't count at all. But all the midfield players start to get injured and there is a time when there is only Sissoko. In January, over there, he calls me but he doesn't play me, he puts Nedved in the center of the field instead of me. I trained well, because I trained for myself, and that was really what helped me, because in the next game he had to give Nedved a break, who should have been 36 years old, and then he came to ask me if I could play 45 minutes. I said yes, that he could count on me. And in that game, in Bologna, he takes me out after 82 minutes and gives me a hug. Since then, I have always played as a starter until I seriously injured my knee and was out for two and a half months.

Athletic transfer

Ranieri is fired with four weeks to go. Ferrara comes to talk to me and tells me that he wants to change everything at Juventus, to put Juventus on the ball, that Diego Ribas will sign Felipe Melo, who would start playing with three in the midfield. Everything starts to go very well with Ferrara, I start to play, we start to win, until I get injured. The injuries start again. I remember going back to a Champions League match against Bayern Munich and tearing myself apart again. In my opinion it was “Juventus is no longer for me, I have no luck here.” A wave of disbelief from my time at Juventus is beginning to come and I ask to leave in January. Atlético de Madrid was in a difficult moment but I wanted to go to Spain. I decided to take a risk and leave. I was borrowed until the end of the year, but I ended up staying until the end of my career.

Adaptation to Atlético and Madrid

From the first day it was spectacular. Atlético was in the second part of the league table and down here. But why was it so special to me? Because from my first call, as soon as I start warming up, the fans immediately start singing by my name. I came from a time at Juventus when the fans wanted me so far (laughs). Feeling that affection without even wearing his shirt, that filled my ego immediately. And I started playing and the criticism was good, the fans loved me. In other words, everything started to go well. What did not happen at Juventus, where it seemed that everything was so difficult. There, everything started to go very well and naturally.

Return to Juve

The following season was difficult because I had to return to Juventus because I had two more years on the contract. I just did the preseason. I trained alone, away from the first team. I trained in the morning and in the afternoon. They knew that I did not want to stay there, only that Atlético could not pay, spend money either, so that ends up being a fight between the clubs and between the player. The incoming coach, Conte, sure that management tells him that I am not part of the team and that they have to find a way out and until he does, he does not put me training with the main team, he leaves me apart. I wanted to go to Atlético. Obviously I was earning much less, I lost money, but I would rather go to Atlético and be happy. But I got to a stage with a week to go before the European Super Cup, I didn't even have a chance to win my place to play the Super Cup.

Quique Sánchez Flores

I loved it. I felt that I was always an important player for him. A coach who did not have an easy life either, because the Athletic group was not easy in terms of union. There were many egos on that team. At the time, the club valued attackers much more than defenders. Both supporters and managers or journalists, the greatest were always the attackers. This is almost always the case in all teams, who scores goals is worth and the others are worth nothing.. When it is lost, it is the fault of some, and when it is the fault, it is the fault of others. And there it was very strong, very marked and that did not help in the union of the team.

Simeone

With Manzao the club really hits the bottom in terms of results and Simeone arrives in January. He is the most important coach of my career. Or rather, it is not the most important thing in my career, because I had already made a career before he entered my life, he has caught me since I was 30 years old. But it was the coach that marked me the most in my career. Because there was a type of leadership that I identified with a lot. At a time when I'm already thinking about going to a less competitive league, he convinces me to be an important player again. And it marked me a lot. I thought he had done everything in football and he thought he still had a lot to give. It was my last years that marked me a lot as a player and at this moment I want to be a coach. It's because of what I experimented with and with that group of players.

Most important title

The Spanish league. It was impressive. Winning a Spanish League with Real Madrid by Cristiano and Bale and Barcelona by Neymar and Messi is incredible. For a club like Atlético, it was incredible to have won that league. Obviously everything started with the Copa del Rey final that we won against Real Madrid, at the Bernabéu. I think winning the championship starts in that final, that's when we start to believe.

Chelsea

It was after being champions and playing the first final of the Champions League. I'm about to return to England, it's true. 'And why don't you come back?' Asks the journalist. 'Good question. It is almost fine and it is better not to say much more, but things do not arise and Atlético and Simeone do everything possible to get him back and I'll be back.

Were you ready to go to Chelsea?

Yes. The money there no longer made a difference. Especially since I don't go to Chelsea and I have another club, in Spain, which gave me much more money and decided to stay at Atlético. What was it Never mind. They gave me better conditions, but I decided that my story was in Atlético at that time. But why do I want to go to Chelsea? Because Diego Costa and Filipe Luis, two friends, were going, and because Mourinho really convinced me to go.

Return to Atlético

Atlético had not yet hired anyone for my position, but I did not want to go to the other club without knowing and being sure that Atlético wanted me, because he was still very attached to Atlético. When we get in touch with Atlético, the president will ask Simeone and he simply said: “Let him come tomorrow.” And then it was already decided.

Withdrawal

I decide to end it when my last year is suffering. Because I fractured my leg in November 2015 and until the end of the season I play ten minutes, if I'm not mistaken, on the last day of the championship. Then I still go to the bench in the Champions League final, almost like an award for having managed to recover. And the following year I play another season. Atlético offered me the renewal for another year without really knowing how it was. I play another year but I was suffering. Soccer was already suffering, I had to go before to prepare to train, after training I had to stay longer, I don't know how many hours to recover to be able to train the next day. Yes, and there is no pleasure, only suffering. At the end of that season, when there are two, three games left, Simeone and Miguel Ángel (Gil) propose to stay on the technical team and it was really the icing on the cake.

Jump to coach

At that time I did not have any level of the coach course. The training error began to enter, especially because Simeone asked me if I had already taken the course, what I had to take. There was a time when I got injured and he caught me by surprise in front of the group and asked me to give the final lecture to my colleagues. He always challenged me, I saw that he thought he was in a position to do so. When he invited me to help him the following year, to join the technical team, I said, “This is what I want.” I had no trouble hanging up my boots. It was a relief

Stage as Cholo's assistant

Well, let's go back here. It was difficult, because I went from one locker room to another, I began to see my teammates and evaluate them before my coach, before my leader, and this is complicated because when we are on the side of the players, we and I, in this case, my job is always to press for them. I go to one and I go to the other, always giving strength to both, but I don't have to choose (laughs). When you are on the other side, you have to make the decision because our leader asks us what we think and we have to be honest, we have to say what we think, regardless of whether we like one or the other, there we are evaluating income And in that regard things are complicated. On the other hand, it was a fantastic stage, it was to meet the mind of a coach who I think is super special and with whom I identify a lot in my way of working. He lived his daily life and that is also an asset that I have for my life. Nor is it for my professional life, it is for my life as a person.

Goodbye to Atlético

I had to stop a little and slow down, because the pace is very strong. We are always away from home, I felt at that moment that the family was running away from me, I was starting to have problems because the family is always waiting for football to end with the father and to have the husband a little more at home and I finished my career and I started training, which is even worse. Because we have to work a lot more, we not only care about ourselves, we have to prepare the training. When we are players and we are injured, we are at home. As a coach, we are all games on stage, there is no stopping. Free day, if I have to prepare workouts, I am working. To prepare for a week of training, we can join in the evening for dinner at someone's home. Everything is more intense, while the player only has to train and go home to rest. I had signed a three-year contract, but the end of the first came and I told them I had to stop. Before joining the national team, I spent a year living in Madrid but with my family. Traveling, enjoying children, birthdays.

Chat with Simeone

No, it was a complicated moment, because there, after receiving an invitation like that, after having signed three years, he opened the door of his dressing room, of his daily life and at the end of the season, go to him, tell him that he was having some problems at home and he needed to stop me for a while … These are difficult times, which he understands, but he was certainly a bit sad and disappointed. I say this because I was going to lose this great opportunity, which is to live day by day with him.

Portuguese Football Federation

During the time that I was in the team with Fernando Santos, I met Tiago Craveiro, I met and personally dealt with President Fernando Gomes and a relationship of respect and friendship was created, which later made Tiago Craveiro invite me to join the Federation last year. He called me and said he wanted to talk to me. He was in Madrid and I told him that I was coming to Lisbon to talk to him. Tiago Craveiro explained this wish to me, if it was available, I did not know what I wanted to do or not do in the future. I told him that I was thinking of returning to Portugal the following year and that, therefore, it was a great opportunity and that we would continue talking. Meanwhile, I was with the President, I met José Couceiro and that's it, I made the decision to join this family and I loved it. I have been an assistant coach for under 16s and under 20s. Since I don't have UEFA Pro yet and all coaches do, I'm more of an assistant national coach. The work to be done at these ages is completely different from what is required at the level of an Atlético de Madrid. I prefer day to day, I prefer pressure, I have no doubt that this is temporary, so to speak, because I have the goal of training a club.

Team you would like to train

I don't know, honestly, I'm not crazy about anyone. When I was a kid, I was a Porto player, then I played for Benfica and now I'm a Benfica player, let's say I end up being a fan of the clubs I go to later, so maybe I would like to train a club where I went, but I am fully available to go train someone else.

Portuguese football today

Whenever possible, I came to Portugal, there was nothing that surprised me because I always had Portuguese television, I was always very connected to the country. Now there is something that makes me sad here in Portugal, which is the way football is lived. There is a lot of suspicion, there is a lot of rubbish in soccer in Portugal and that makes me a bit of a disaster. In Portuguese football there is more talk about that (E-Mole cases and others) than actually football and that saddens me, because football is really something else. Soccer is the ball entering the goal, it is the public in the stadium singing, this is soccer that everyone likes or likes, and on television we only hear about these problems from the referee and I don't know what and I don't know what else, the line more here, beyond, VAR, anything but football. It is not much outside. Definitely. But if things are really happening, they have to be resolved. Now it is a great suspicion in everything and everyone … I remember talking about players who were bought … I find it hard to believe, but if there is evidence to present them and put people in jail. Because afterwards, we talk, we talk, we talk and nothing happens. Or do as in Italy, Juventus for the second division, resolve and keep going, because otherwise it is a shame to live this every day on television and football, which is beautiful, nothing.