Vitor Pereira: "My journey to Wolves, family life and how I almost ended up at Baggies"

The Wolves head coach strode into The Inn at Shipley on the outskirts of Wolverhampton wearing large dark sunglasses clutching a pint of Asahi beer - before admitting he would have preferred Stella Artois.

But that did not impact his mood. The 56-year-old had a beaming smile and rightly so - Wolves are unbeaten in seven games, on a six-match winning run and up to 13th in the table.

Pereira found the club 19th and hurtling towards relegation. That calls for a pint or two.

The conversation, understandably, began with his antics across Wolverhampton pubs as fans flock to get a glimpse of the head coach enjoying a drink after another win.

"Connecting the people" is his purpose, seeing their smiles is his tonic and Pereira has captured the hearts of minds of a passionate fan base in just 18 short games. His now famous slogan is everywhere - 'first the points, then the pints'.

But his steely determination to succeed is never far from the surface and after a long rant about his team's performance at Manchester United - which still plays on his mind despite the 1-0 win - his focus turns to football.

"When we came to the Premier League, we came to work," he said.

"This is, for me, that's enough. This is the life that I want.

“In this country, they have big clubs. We are in a small city.

“If I go to the city centre, everybody knows me and wants to be with me and this is our power.

"We can make the difference because we are in a small area, and if we are connected, if we don't lose our energy, if we don't commit mistakes, we can do fantastic things together.

“When I go to a pub it's not about the beer. Of course I like the beer but I go to be with the people, to feel that I'm doing something to make them happy, to make them proud.

“This club gave me the opportunity to come here."

It was a long journey to the Premier League but that experience is now what guides him and confidence is now brimming among the players - a far cry from a group that previously looked down and out.

"It's my personality, I'm a confident guy, believe me," Pereira said.

"I'm confident because I built my life working hard.

"A long time, building to have clear ideas about football.

"I committed a lot of mistakes in my career and these mistakes give me the opportunity to be stronger now.

"Mistakes with the superstars, how to manage the big names, how to manage the big egos, how to give confidence in the middle of a season, and to make an impact on the first day.

"I used to say that if I go to the pitch for one training session, you will see the difference. You know why? Because I have confidence in myself. I have confidence in my staff.

"Nobody can work without confidence. Rebuild the confidence."

With more than 600 games as a manager under his belt, Pereira has experience at a number of clubs across several countries, including Portugal, Turkey, Greece, China and Brazil.

He has been desperate for a Premier League chance for years and it is well documented that he almost got the Everton job three times, while he also spoke to Crystal Palace and Chelsea previously.

But in a remarkable confession, Pereira admitted he could have been in the dugout of Wolves' Black Country rivals earlier in his career.

He said: “Do you know how many meetings I had here? The first one, West Bromwich, in the Premier League, maybe 15 years ago.

“The second? Everton. Third? Crystal Palace with the proposal, with the contract for two and a half years.

“OK, we can celebrate with a pint and then they changed the idea for another but I realised that is normal here.

“After that, Chelsea, then Everton again, then Arsenal. I had a very long, very good meeting with Arsenal before they signed Arteta.

“Watford was the only time that I said no. I didn’t want to do it. It was the time that they were relegated.”

But Pereira believes in fate and has found a new home at Wolves.

With the fans and players on board, it is only a matter of time before a new contract is being discussed, but the 56-year-old is firstly delighted to be given this opportunity to shine.

“I’m very happy to be here," he added.

“I’m very grateful to the club because they gave me the opportunity to be in the league that gives me the opportunity to be at my best level.

“It challenges me and I need to be challenged. If I go to a league and tactically, I cannot express myself, that is not for me. But in this league, I can do it.

"Maybe I was not ready before and God took care of me, and now is the time.

“It’s not when you want when you want it, but now is the time and this is the club.

“I felt I had something to prove to myself, of course. I want to compete with the best. But I feel confident to compete."

Pereira takes a break to compare his golden pint to Wolves' signature colours and point a smile towards assistant manager Luis Miguel, who is sat quietly in the corner of the room sipping on his own pint of Guinness.

They both laugh when Pereira is asked what he was like as a player, as he played alongside Miguel during his career and the pair have stayed together during their coaching adventure.

Miguel is also married to Pereira's sister and their bond is evidently strong.

“Luis has been with me for a long, long time and we worked a lot around the world too," Pereira said.

“So when we arrived, we arrived prepared for everything. Now I feel that I'm ready.

“When you feel that you are prepared, you know the details in the games.

“It's not easy because here in the Premier League, everything is fast and the players are top players.

"I think if I'm not a manager, I would be something like an architect. I like to create things. Creating a style of game in the team is like taking a baby in my arms and starting to help him to grow up.

"It's like I start a new painting, and I need to create. I plan the training sessions, and I need to create every day because if I don't do this, I start to be unbalanced.

"I'm not satisfied with what I'm doing now. I want more and more and more. This is football, it has given me the opportunity to express my creativity, a side of myself that I need to.

"If I don't do this, I would maybe be a painter, maybe I need to be in the art area."

The conversation turned to Pereira's life growing up in Portugal, where he worked as a lifeguard to fund his ambition of going to university, before he started work as a teacher.

Pereira grew up in Espinho, a small fishing town in Greater Porto, and lived right by the water.

He had humble beginnings and lived in the basement of a building that endured some of the most difficult conditions.

"I'm a man of the sea," he said.

"I grew up on the beach, my house was 50 metres from the beach. At the time my father didn't have money so we lived underground.

"The sea in the winter came strong, without barriers. Every winter, for three months, there was water inside. We had to rebuild the house. Every time there was water in the walls, and a bad smell. I felt ashamed because my clothes smelled.

"You felt wet every time, that was our life.

"(I was a) very happy teenager because in this kind of community we have the guys, the confident guys together and a lot of people who were committed and living on the street. When I look back, this power I feel inside of me came from this time.

"My friends are the people from 50 years ago. They are my friends, all of them. I go there and I feel like I’m home, I belong here, this is my space. In front of the sea, with my beer, my paper and a pen. This is what I like."

Pereira's dream was to get into coaching and after stints at smaller clubs and working with youth teams, he landed the Porto job and won back-to-back league titles.

It was from there that his globetrotting career took off before he landed in Wolverhampton, but the toll of the job on his family life has been severe.

His wife and three sons, who are all in their mid to late 20s, still live in Portugal and have not followed him to England.

"This is the part of my life that is difficult to speak about," he admitted.

"In the last 15 years, my wife was the father and the mother because I didn't see anything. Birthdays, when they graduate, I have never been there. Never. The sacrifices you have to make.

"I don't want my sons in football. I don't want this life for my sons because they cannot have a family life in this job. It's impossible, and we have a lot of moments where we suffer a lot and alone. 

"For me, the competition is like a drug. Football is like a drug for me. Passion and a drug. I cannot live without it, because after one month, I start to be nervous. I cannot enjoy anything. That's why I say that football is a drug.

"Before, I said to my wife, this is the opportunity that I have. I was a teacher for 15 years. This is the opportunity that I have to build the life for my sons, but when I finished, because I won a lot of money, she asked me, 'now it's for what? It's for you. Since the beginning, it's for you'.

"This is something that I don't want for my sons. I don't want this."

When asked if he regrets missing so much of his family life, Pereira added: "Of course. Sometimes I went home, and it's like 'where are my clothes'. I don't know where I have the knife or fork. I change my house every time. The car.

"They start to talk when we have lunch or dinner, and my mind is on football. I'm thinking about the problem that I need to solve, and they are talking about things that I don't understand.

"I cannot understand the conversation. It's like I started to see the movie, and I lost the movie until the end. And I go there at the end, and I don't know what happened.

"It's like the personality of my sons has changed, and I didn't realise. You know, this (football) is not only good things. We suffer a lot, believe me. A lot.

"That's why we must suffer and suffer and suffer to be stronger and I believe that the moments of my life gave me the opportunity to be stronger and I arrived here ready to fight."

But Pereira was unable to bring himself to discuss those 'moments' in great detail.

He looked emotional as he recalled some of the darkest times in his personal life, that have helped him put football into perspective.

"I cannot speak about this because I don't want to cry," Pereira said.

"When I arrived in Brazil, I went to Corinthians. If you see the stadium of Corinthians and Flamengo, they have millions of supporters. 55 million supporters.

"When I met the press, they asked me, 'Vitor, you don't feel the pressure?' The pressure, my friend. I'll tell you about the pressure. The pressure was when my father had cancer, my brother was dying, my mother was crying. This is the pressure.

"And when we deal with this, my friend, football is football. Sometimes I look for the people, and I don't feel anything. I don't feel any pressure, nothing. Zero, believe me.

"The pressure is the pressure that I put on myself, because I want to be better. I want my team playing strong, beautiful football, winning games.

"Every time, I think I can do better and better and better and better, because I just expressed half of myself. I have a lot to prove myself. If I'm in the right place to challenge me, I can do magic."

And he has certainly shown some of that magic in just over four months at Wolves.

As the architect of Wolves' survival, Wolves and their fans owe Pereira a lot, but when it is put to him that he saved the club, he insisted: "No, no, I didn't save Wolves. I think the players realised that they had the quality to do better. This is not a team to (go down)."

His next aim will be to take this club forward next season without the fear of relegation, but for now Pereira's start to life at Wolves has been a resounding success.