Luxembourg returns to Corinthians after dismissal and political ‘betrayal’

Recognized even by his opponents as a coach capable of changing a game in the locker room and admired by fans when he formed winning and showy teams in the 90s and 2000s, Vanderlei Luxemburgo he was also marked by the mania for commanding all sectors of the club.

Manager, as he himself said. Symbol of a generation that started to value coaches more, Luxemburgo faces the challenge of proving that he can rescue his genius on the sidelines after the inactivity and the scarcity of titles in recent years. He takes over Corinthians in place of Cucawho was thrown out by fans for having participated in a rape when he was still a player.

It is impossible to list the greatest Brazilian technicians in history without mentioning “Pofexô”, alongside other greats such as Telê Santana, Zagallo and Felipão. Even with five Brazilian titles as a coach, Luxemburgo has been away from football since December 2021, when he managed Cruzeiro still in Série B of the Brazilian Championship.

The 70-year-old coach ended up being replaced by Paulo Pezzolano after the arrival of Ronaldo Fenômeno as manager of the Minas Gerais club. According to the club, he was sacked to “adjust the accounts to budgetary reality”. Luxury has always been expensive.

Away from the pitch, Luxemburgo has always been present on social media. In March of this year, the 70-year-old coach experienced an unusual situation: he had to deny a rumor that circulated on social media that he had died after a helicopter crash in São Paulo. The helicopter he was referring to crashed in the Barra Funda neighborhood and left four dead.

“There’s fake news going around that I fell with a helicopter and died. It’s a lie, it’s fake. I’m here in Tocantins, in Palmas, it has nothing to do with me. The characteristic of fake news is that, creating turmoil in life of us, people closest to us can be sick, family members, (this wrong news). I’m more alive than ever. Vanderlei Luxemburgo only has one, I’m saying it’s me “, he declared.

During this period, he says he received “a lot of proposals” in football. Luxa was considered as Santos’ football manager at the end of last year. He made a counter proposal. His idea was to take over as technical director until the end of 2022, that is, to rule on and off the field. As of 2023, he would only assume the position of manager. There was no agreement for his return to Vila.

Faced with the few invitations to football since his departure from Cruzeiro, the coach tried to take a break from his football career and considered entering political life, an old dream. He applied for a vacancy to run for the Federal Senate in Tocantins for the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), an acronym to which he had joined. Luxembourg has companies in Tocantins.

Among its main businesses is TV Jovem, an affiliate of TV Record. In August, he withdrew from the candidacy after his name was rejected at the party’s convention. The coach ended up being replaced at the last minute by the former mayor of Palmas, Carlos Amastha. At the time, he said he was “stabbed in the back”. Discarded for the Senate, he withdrew from any candidacy.

The last achievement was in 2020 when he managed to lead Palmeiras to the São Paulo title after winning over Corinthians on penalties by 4 to 3, at Allianz Parque. He lived with criticism from fans for the team not presenting good football, even with the sequence of 20 unbeaten games. The fifth spell at the club came to an end in October 2020, after a 3-1 defeat by Coritiba, at Allianz, for the Brazilian Championship. Part of his legacy was the rise of players from the youth ranks to the professional team, such as Patrick de Paula and Gabriel Menino.

Vain and charismatic, Luxemburgo hates being called outdated. He often says that many concepts used in football today were anticipated by him in past decades. “Everything that is happening in modern football today, I was the one who brought it. Performance analysis, physiologist, everything you can imagine … so, I was at the forefront”, he said in one of his famous phrases.

In an interview with Estadão in September last year, he criticized the current terminology of national football because he understands that the new vocabulary, with terms such as “unbalanced extremes” instead of “dribbler ends”, does not represent modernity. “Modern is f**k” terminology ain’t shit. We have to speak football in the Brazilian way,” he said.

Yes, the use of profanity is another characteristic feature of the style of the new Corinthians coach.

Luxembourg has been accused of sexual harassment in the past

Luxembourg has also been involved in a sex scandal. In 1996, the coach was accused of sexual harassment by the manicurist Cláudia Cavalcante. The coach, then at Palmeiras, would have tried to abuse the manicure at the Vila Rica hotel, in Campinas, before his team’s game against Rio Branco, in Americana

According to the manicurist’s version, she would have gone to see Luxemburg in her room, where the coach was wrapped only in a towel. In the accused’s version, he was wearing the Palmeiras sweater. Justice accepted a charge of violent indecent assault, but ended up acquitting the technician in November 1997. In October 1998, the sentence that acquitted him was confirmed.

Luxembourg still had problems with a porn film production company, which released the video “Vanderburgo e a Manicure”, making a parody of the accusation of sexual harassment.