Pedro Gonçalves (football manager)

Pedro Valdemar Soares Gonçalves (born February 7, 1976) is a Portuguese football coach. He is currently the coach of the Angola national team.

Gonçalves began his coaching career at Amora Futebol Clube in 1997, still as an assistant. Later, he moved to CD Cova da Piedade and then joined Sporting Clube de Portugal in 2000, first as a scout, and then as youth coach in 2001. He coached at Sporting's academy until 2015.

Also in 2015, he left for Angola where he was in charge of the under-15 and under-17 squads of 1º de Agosto, and later won the Angolan championship. In 2018 he was elected Angola national under-17 coach. In the same year he won the Cosafa Cup and was the protagonist of Angola's first ever qualification to the under-17 World Cup, held in 2019.

After coaching the Palancas Negras' U-20 and U-23 teams, Pedro Soares Gonçalves became the Angola senior national team coach in 2019, a position he currently holds. In 2022 secured Angola's qualification for the African Nations Championship (CHAN), which was held in 2023. Finished the competition in second place of Group D.

In September 2023, he made history once again by qualifying the Angolan national team for AFCON 2023, thus becoming the only "Palancas Negras" coach to qualify for both the African Nations Championship (CHAN) and the AFCON.

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