After drawing at home with second-placed AEK Larnaca (1-1), in the 10th and final round of the championship play-off, the 'canaries' secured with difficulty their first title since 2018/19, succeeding Aris Limassol.

APOEL and AEK Larnaca finished the competition with the same 73 points, but Sá Pinto's team, which has Portuguese forward Tomané in the squad, won the direct confrontation and now has 29 titles, eight more than Omonia, the second most successful club in Cyprus.

The former Portuguese international forward, aged 51, won his first national championship title in more than a decade on the bench and replicated the feats signed in charge of the Nicosia emblem by Paulo Sérgio (2013/14), current coach of Portimonense, from the Portuguese I League, Domingos Paciência (2015/16) or Bruno Baltazar (2017/18 and 2018/19).

Ricardo Sá Pinto arrived at APOEL this season, the 14th club he has coached, in a total of 10 countries, and now reaches his fifth trophy, after a national junior championship for Sporting (2011/12), a Belgian Cup for Standard Liège (2017/18), an Iranian Super Cup through Esteghlal (2022) and a League Cup at Sporting de Braga (2019/20).

The former footballer, coach and sporting director of Sporting entered the list of Portuguese coaches with national championship titles achieved abroad, on a day when Jorge Jesus won the Saudi League for the first time, leading record holder Al-Hilal to their 19th title, sealing a Portuguese 'tetra' started by José Morais, Leonardo Jardim and Nuno Espírito Santo.

In the European continent, and besides Portugal and Cyprus, there have already been successes with national coaches in 12 countries, such as Bulgaria, Greece, Israel, Luxembourg, Romania, Russia, Switzerland and Ukraine, with Germany missing to close this path in the five major championships.

The main protagonist of this scenario is José Mourinho, who is still the only one to win in Spain, for Real Madrid (2011/12), in England, where he was three-time champion with Chelsea (2004/05, 2005/06 and 2014/15), and in Italy, 'bisando' for Inter Milan (2008/09 and 2009/10).

The Setúbal native, who is currently without a club, has never worked in Germany and France, whose League has already elevated Artur Jorge, with the second of Paris Saint-Germain's 12 conquests, in 1993/94, and Leonardo Jardim, author of Monaco's eighth and last trophy, in 2016/17.

In all, Portuguese coaches have already prevailed in the top echelons of 38 nations from the four corners of the world, with emphasis on the 39 successes in nine African countries, where Mozambique has dominated, with a total of 11 conquests, one over Egypt.

On that continent, Manuel José, with six Egyptian titles for Al-Ahly, and Bernardino Pedroto, with three for ASA and two for Petro Luanda, all in Angola, stood out, apart from the conquests in Cape Verde, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia or Algeria, where Carlos Gomes was the first Portuguese to be champion abroad, in 1970/71, for MC Oran.

Asia follows, with victories scattered across Saudi Arabia, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Qatar and Vietnam, with the three titles of Bernardo Tavares, with PSM Makassar, Benfica Macau and New Radiant, and of José Morais, who celebrated for Al-Hilal and 'bisou' at the helm of Jeonbuk.

More recent is the Portuguese mark in South America, which began to be built five years ago by Jorge Jesus in Brazil, where Abel Ferreira won twice for Palmeiras (2022 and 2023), with contributions also from Renato Paiva for Independiente del Valle (2021), from Ecuador, or Ricardo Formosinho for The Strongest (2023), from Bolivia.

If there is no success in Oceania, the record in North America is limited to Guilherme Farinha's 'bis' in Costa Rica, representing Alajuelense, in 1999/00 and 2000/01, and Pedro Caixinha's triumph in Mexico, with Santos Laguna, in 2014/15

Leia Também: Sá Pinto festeja no Chipre. Português vence 1.º campeonato da carreira (Portuguese version)