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Carlos Queiroz and getting the big decisions right

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Jamie "The Pacman" Pacheco discusses the factors that led to Carlos Queiroz walking out on Man Utd to become the manager of Portugal and how important it is to get such decisons right...

The more romantic souls argue that happiness in life is all about success in love and relationships, the more adventurous argue that the key to happiness is all about life experiences whereas the more proud folk out there will be happy enough if they're confident they'll be remembered in a good light when they're six feet under.

But the more pragmatic people out there like myself believe that the key to happiness is quite simply to consistently make good decisions. The more decisions you get right the better, and the bigger the decisions you make correctly, the happier you will end up being. Choose the right university, follow the right career path for you, elect to live in a place you like, choose to marry a woman who loves you and will support you through thick and thin and you just can't go wrong. Simple, eh?

One man who has had to make one of the biggest decisions in his life over the last week or so is Carlos Queiroz. Queiroz is one of the good guys in football. One of my first footballing memories was to watch him guide Portugal to the 1989 World Youth Championships with a side that boasted the likes of Fernando Couto and Joao Vieira Pinto. Two years later he did it again on Portuguese soil with an even better side; Joao Vieira Pinto was there again, this time as skipper, and was time joined by the likes of Luis Figo, Rui Costa and Jorge Costa who later became collectively known as "The Golden Generation".

Queiroz's son went to my school in Lisbon and his old man often came along to watch the different school football teams play, more out of love for the game than on any scouting missions for Sporting Lisbon's youth teams (he coached the Lisbon giants at the time).

One afternoon he was watching from the sidelines as I missed a penalty by placing it too close to the keeper with what was virtually the last kick of the game, and we ended up drawing. As I walked past him on my way to the changing rooms on the verge of tears, he smiled at me and said comfortingly "The only people who don't miss penalties are those who don't take them".

The decision Queiroz had to make last week was as follows: stay at Man Utd as Alex Ferguson's number two, work with some of the finest players on the planet and be involved with a side that starts as the [2.78] favourites for the Premiership and the [7.0] jollies for the Champions League.

When all goes well he'll be recognized as an integral part of a successful management team but ultimately it will be Ferguson who will get most of the credit. If it all goes wrong, the buck will ultimately stop with the hairdryer treatment man. In summary, a pretty comfortable position to be in. Just one more little factor thrown into the mix: when (some would say "if") Sir Alex does retire, Queiroz would have been in strong contention to take over the reins at Old Trafford; he's been matched as low as [3.1] to be next Man Utd manager in a market now led by Mourinho at [7.8].

The alternative: take over as the manager of a national team that probably possesses the most naturally gifted crop of players of any European national side, bar possibly the Netherlands and Spain. Try and finally take them to glory in a major competition and make amends for a largely unsuccessful first spell in charge of the national side, back in the mid 90s.

I'm not alone in thinking that Mourinho's next job in football after Inter Milan will indeed be the Portugal job; he's a hugely patriotic man and has stated his intentions of managing his national side. It could well be his last job, too. After football, he'll probably become a full-time UN ambassador or motivational speaker for corporate fatcats. Or Secretary of State for Defence - he knows enough about that subject. But back to Queiroz and suffice to say the Portugal job was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If he were to have turned the job down now, there's a good chance that his name would not have been the first one on the Portuguese FA's shortlist next time round.

As we all know, Queiroz did take the Portugal job. Rumour has it he was offered a 50% pay increase by Man Ut to stay but I'd like to think that having been in football at the very top for almost twenty years, money wasn't that much of a factor.

Also, only Queiroz will know what Ferguson and the Man Utd Board have said to him about his chances of getting what is probably the biggest job in club football when Ferguson steps down. Maybe they feel that his quiet, understated demeanour isn't quite what's required for the job and that Martin O'Neill, Roy Keane or even David Moyes are more what they're after. The Betfair market seems to suggest this.

I must say I don't blame him for making the decision he did. I also wonder whether the ill-fated experience of managing Real Madrid a few years back was enough to convince himself that maybe he just wasn't cut out to be the manager of a massive club with all the off-field issues to deal with, never mind the on-field ones.

Back at Real it was the partying lifestyles of the likes of Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos off the field and that noone bar Makelele was interested in defending on it that were the source of his problems. And if you think these things don't happen at Old Trafford, look no further than the shenanigans that another Ronaldo has been guilty of during the last few weeks or the infamous Christmas party last year. Has Queiroz made the right decision? Only time will tell but I suspect him getting it right or not will have a large bearing on his happiness for the remainder of his life.