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Carlos Manuel Brito Leal de Queiroz (born 1 March 1953) is a Portuguese football manager who is currently coach of the Oman national team. He has served as the manager of his native Portugal's national team, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Iran, Colombia, Egypt and Qatar, leading South Africa (2002), Portugal (2010) and Iran (2014, 2018, and 2022) to the FIFA World Cup. At club level, he has also managed Sporting CP, the New York/New Jersey Metrostars in Major League Soccer and Spanish club Real Madrid. He also had two spells as Alex Ferguson's assistant manager at English club Manchester United.
Queiroz has won several awards as a coach at junior levels, and has been successful at senior and club levels, mainly as Alex Ferguson's assistant manager. In 1998, he authored the Q-Report, which detailed plans to enhance footballer development in the United States.
Queiroz is the longest-serving manager in the history of the Iran national team, serving for almost eight years between 2011 and 2019. He returned to the role for Iran's 2022 World Cup campaign. He is the only manager in the country's history to lead them at three consecutive World Cups. Since 2022, he had a brief spell as coach of Qatar before being appointed by Oman in July 2025.
He subsequently coached the NY/NJ MetroStars in the United States and the Japanese team, Nagoya Grampus. In between, he found time to author the Q-Report, detailing plans to professionalize the development of footballers in the United States. Queiroz returned to coaching national teams in 1999, when he took the job as head coach of the United Arab Emirates, before becoming head coach of South Africa in 2000. Under Queiroz, South Africa qualified for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, but Queiroz resigned in March 2002 before the finals, after falling out with the South African Football Association. Queiroz was part of FIFA XI coaching staff, alongside Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira, in a humanitarian friendly match played in war-torn Sarajevo against Bosnia and Herzegovina on 25 April 2000.
Queiroz became a coach at English club Manchester United in June 2002. He began his work at the start of the 2002–03 season, working alongside Alex Ferguson, who had gone without an assistant manager since the departure of Steve McClaren in the middle of 2001.
Real Madrid got off to a good start of the 2003–04 season, defeating RCD Mallorca in the Supercopa de España. By mid-season, the team topped the La Liga table and was in contention for the Copa del Rey and the UEFA Champions League trophies. However, they lost their final five matches and finished in fourth place, with Valencia CF winning the title. They lost the Copa del Rey final to Real Zaragoza and were eliminated from the Champions League in the quarter-finals by Morientes's new team Monaco, after a 4–2 first leg win, ending the season with the Supercopa de España as the only trophy won, the first time in five years without a major trophy. Following ten months at the Santiago Bernabéu, Queiroz was sacked in May 2004.
In his 2014 autobiography, United captain Roy Keane stated that an argument with Queiroz about loyalty was one of the reasons why the Irishman quit the club in 2005. Keane said during ITV's coverage of the 2018 FIFA World Cup that "one of my big regrets is that I probably should have ripped his head off".
Queiroz was linked with managerial roles with Portuguese side Benfica and the United States national team in 2006, but he remained with Manchester United to help them win the Premier League in 2007. Queiroz was often seen conducting interviews with BBC programmes, such as Match of the Day, as at the time Alex Ferguson refused to speak with the BBC after allegations by the BBC's Panorama programme that Ferguson's younger son Jason and Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp had been involved in corruption regarding cuts in transfer fees. Some of Queiroz's post-match opinions on refereeing were controversial. For example, in 2008 Queiroz was – unsuccessfully – charged with improper conduct by the Football Association after describing referee Martin Atkinson's performance in a match as "a disgrace".
In late March 2008, it was reported that Benfica had, once again, approached Queiroz to become their manager and had made a formal request to Manchester United. United were heavily involved in the 2007–08 Premier League title race, five points clear at the top, with just seven games remaining, and also were still competing in the Champions League – being in the quarter-finals at the time of the enquiry. Queiroz did not make any public response to the approach.
Following Benfica's approach, and amid rumors of an opening as the Portugal national coach, Ferguson started to push for Queiroz to be his successor as manager at Old Trafford and discouraged any possible suitors from approaching him. However, rumours over the summer of 2008 continued to link Queiroz with the Portugal national team managers' role, following the departure of Luiz Felipe Scolari. On 11 July 2008, Manchester United agreed to release Queiroz from his contract, and he was appointed manager for the Portugal national team.
Portugal struggled under his management during the qualification for the 2010 World Cup. Despite kick-starting their World Cup qualification campaign with a comfortable 4–0 win against Malta in Ta' Qali, Queiroz's team failed to win any of their subsequent four matches.
Home form was poor, with a 3–2 defeat to Denmark followed by 0–0 draws against Albania and Sweden. Together with another goalless draw in Stockholm against Sweden, these results left Portugal with only six points out of a possible 15 and on the brink of missing a major international tournament for the first time since 1998. Building on an improving reliability in defence, Portugal defeated Albania in Tirana 2–1 with a late goal, tied 1–1 against Denmark on 5 September, beat Hungary 1–0 and again 3–0 in the return match, and finally defeated Malta 4–0. These results, together with a defeat of Sweden to Denmark, enabled Portugal to finish the campaign second in the group with 19 points, one ahead of Sweden, and qualify for the UEFA play-offs. They played Bosnia and Herzegovina in home and away legs. Portugal won 1–0 in Lisbon and followed up with a 1–0 victory in Zenica, and as a result they advanced to the finals of the 2010 World Cup.
At the World Cup, Portugal drew 0–0 with the Ivory Coast but then beat North Korea 7–0, the heaviest victory in the World Cup since Germany's 8–0 defeat of Saudi Arabia in 2002. This rout virtually guaranteed Portugal passage to the second round and a second goalless draw with Brazil confirmed qualification. In the second round, they lost to Spain 1–0 and were knocked out having failed to score in three of their four World Cup matches.
Quieroz was suspended for six months by the Portuguese Anti-Doping Authority (Autoridade Antidopagem de Portugal) on 30 August 2010, when he was judged to have disrupted their pre-World Cup procedures; he had been suspended for a month by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) for using inappropriate language towards the testers, a lesser charge that he admitted to. He was sacked by the FPF on 9 September. On 23 March 2011, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld his appeal against the Anti-Doping Authority, annulling his suspension.
Since Queiroz's role as manager of the Iran national team, he has been renowned for introducing players from the Iranian diaspora to the national squad. These players include German Iranians Daniel Davari and Ashkan Dejagah, Dutch Iranian Reza Ghoochannejhad, Swedish Iranians Omid Nazari and Saman Ghoddos, and Iranian American Steven Beitashour, among others.
In the fourth round, Iran were drawn with South Korea, Qatar, Uzbekistan, and Lebanon in their group. Queiroz made new foreign-based additions to his squad, adding players such as Reza Ghoochannejhad to his team. Iran started their fourth round of Asian qualifiers with a 1–0 win in Uzbekistan. Team Melli then drew Qatar and lost in Lebanon before defeating South Korea at the Azadi on 16 October with a goal from captain Javad Nekounam. After a 1–0 loss in Tehran against Uzbekistan, Iran defeated Qatar 1–0 in Doha and Lebanon 4–0 at home. In their last qualification match, Iran defeated South Korea 1–0 in Ulsan Munsu with a goal from European-based Ghoochannejhad, resulting in their qualification to the 2014 World Cup as group winners with 16 points. Thus, Iran became the third team that Queiroz managed to qualify for the World Cup, having reached the 2002 edition with South Africa and the 2010 edition with Portugal, leading the latter to a knockout stage finish.
Iran qualified for the 2014 World Cup as group winners and competed in Group F alongside Argentina, Nigeria, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. On 1 June 2014, Queiroz announced his 23-man squad. Prior to the tournament, they founded the Central Asian Football Association.
In the opening match of the tournament on 16 June, Iran drew Nigeria 0–0, making it their first clean sheet of the FIFA World Cup. In their next match, Iran was defeated by Argentina 1–0 with a late goal from Lionel Messi, and received praise after holding Argentina for 90 minutes while creating some attacking opportunities of their own. Iran was eliminated from the tournament in their next game, a 3–1 defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Iran's lone goal was scored by Reza Ghoochannejhad. Reza makes Charlton history at World Cup Based on a Forbes report, his salary as an Iranian team manager was US$2,098,060 during the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
After the tournament, Queiroz extended his contract until the 2018 World Cup.
With the second highest number of fans in the tournament after hosts Australia, the Iranians defeated Bahrain 2–0 with limited preparations. Iranian crowd sets Asian Cup standard A defensive-minded Iran then defeated Qatar 1–0 thanks to a Sardar Azmoun goal before defeating the UAE by the same scoreline to reach the top of their group.
In the quarter-finals, Iran faced underdog Iraq, who they had beaten weeks prior in a friendly match. Having received a controversial red card in the first half from referee Ben Williams, Iran led a valiant effort with ten men, scoring two goals late in extra time to draw the match 3–3. In the ensuing penalty shootout, Iran lost 7–6 in sudden death.
On 26 April, Queiroz announced that he would continue as the manager of Iran for their 2018 World Cup campaign. Iran ended their second round qualifying with a 4–0 victory against India and a 2–0 win against Oman. Iran finished top of the group with 20 points from eight games, Queiroz and his team managed to avoid defeat and remain unbeaten in the second round of World Cup qualifying. Iran was placed in Pot 1 alongside Australia for the draw of the third round of World Cup qualifying. They drew with South Korea, Uzbekistan, Qatar, China and Syria. With two games remaining, Iran qualified to the World Cup with defeating Uzbekistan at the Azadi Stadium. They became third team to qualify to the World Cup after host Russia and Brazil. In April 2018, he was one of the applicants for the vacant Cameroon national team job.
After going undefeated in qualification, Iran beat Morocco 1–0 in their opening match of the tournament thanks to a late own goal from Aziz Bouhaddouz, but lost 1–0 to Spain in their second match. Their final match saw Queiroz come up against his home country, Portugal; after going 1–0 down, goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand saved a penalty from Cristiano Ronaldo to give Iran hope, but they had to wait until injury time at the end of the second half for an equaliser from Karim Ansarifard. The draw might have been enough to see Iran into the knockout phase for the first time in their history at the expense of the Spaniards, but Spain's injury-time equaliser in a 2–2 draw with Morocco meant they qualified with Portugal.
Colombia also began the 2022 World Cup qualifiers with hope to make it their third in a row for the second time, and Colombia appeared to be on the right path where they beat neighbor Venezuela and held Chile. However, when matches resumed following the COVID-19 pandemic, Colombia's performance slipped disastrously, with a 0–3 home loss to Uruguay (its worst ever home loss in 82 years) before being shockingly thrashed 1–6 by Ecuador, the biggest ever defeat, and this finally put the end to Carlos Queiroz's reign as Colombia's boss.
The World Cup took place for Iran amidst the backdrop of the Mahsa Amini protests. Queiroz said that his players had the right to protest as long as it conformed with the regulations of the tournament. He took issue with BBC reporter Shaimaa Khalil asking Iran player Mehdi Taremi for his opinion on the protests, and questioned her on whether she would ask the other teams in Iran's group about the British and American withdrawal from Afghanistan.
On 6 December 2023, after twelve matches with Queiroz charge, consisting of four victories, three draws and four losses, the Qatar Football Association announced that his contract had been terminated by mutual agreement, and he had been replaced by Tintín Márquez.
After Iran's victory against South Korea in their final qualification match, Queiroz showed his anger at the South Korean national coach with a raised fist gesture, which was deemed offensive by the South Korean players and staff, almost causing a fight between the two teams. As a result of the altercations, Sosha Makani was suspended for their opening match of the 2014 World Cup. Queiroz had answered previously to Choi that Iran had fairly shared what they had with the South Korean national team on their visit to Iran.
| + Managerial record by team and tenure | ||
| Portugal | 4 September 1991 | 17 November 1993 |
| Sporting CP | 1 June 1994 | 1 June 1996 |
| NY/NJ MetroStars | 18 July 1996 | 19 November 1996 |
| Nagoya Grampus J.League Data Site | 21 November 1996 | 21 November 1997 |
| 19 January 1998 | 18 January 1999 | |
| South Africa | 7 October 2000 | 30 March 2002 |
| Real Madrid | 25 June 2003 | 31 May 2004 |
| Portugal | 11 July 2008 | 9 September 2010 |
| Iran | 4 April 2011 | 28 January 2019 |
| Colombia | 7 February 2019 | 1 December 2020 |
| Egypt | 8 September 2021 | 10 April 2022 |
| Iran | 7 September 2022 | 29 November 2022 |
| Qatar | 6 February 2023 | 5 December 2023 |
| Oman | 15 July 2025 | Present |
Manchester United
Manager
Portugal
Sporting CP Carlos Queiroz at Soccerway
Nagoya Grampus
United Arab Emirates
Real Madrid
Egypt
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Carlos Queiroz profile at Manchester United (archived 31 August 2006)
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