New assistant Head Coach turned down manager's job for Sunderland role
Yesterday at 03:53 PM
New Assistant Head Coach Pedro Ribeiro was offered a manager's job and was all set to take over before Sunderland came calling.
Sunderland appointed Portuguese coach Pedro Ribeiro to the position of Assistant Head Coach today.
Ribeiro will work with Mike Dodds, Michael Proctor and Alessandro Barcherini as support for Head Coach Regis Le Bris.
The 38-year-old had been lined up to take the position of manager at Liga 3 club Academica, according to Record, and was even in attendance at the team's recent Portuguese Cup game against Torreense ahead of a potential appointment.
However the move failed at the last hurdle, with Riberio rejected the club's advances due to 'other proposals', which has transpired to be a move to the Stadium of Light.
Academica instead appointed former Lank FC manager Antonio Barbosa.
Ribeiro had been a free agent since leaving his position of manager of Leixoes in January, where he had a record of 7 wins, 5 draws and 12 defeats in 24 games.
One of those defeats, and one of his final games at the club, being a narrow 2-1 defeat at FC Porto in the Portuguese cup. His team were drawing 1-1 when they had a man sent off just before half time and the hosts scored the winner five minutes from time.
