EXCLUSIVE: Sylvinho on Albania, Arteta's Arsenal and his next job in Europe

In the second part of an exclusive interview with Flashscore, the Brazilian coach explains how he won over a dressing room in a country whose language he did not speak, what he learned from Roberto Mancini, why Arsenal's patience with Mikel Arteta paid off and where he wants to work next.

Read part one of our interview with Sylvinho here!

You joined Manchester City as a player just before the club became a huge force. What do you remember about that time, and could you have imagined what City would become?

"That's something I think about a lot in life. We're older now, and you start to understand that a serious project doesn't happen in two, three or four years. It takes time. And it wasn't simply about the money. They were doing something extraordinary, building something at a very high level.

"When I arrived, it was because Mark Hughes invited me. The idea was that we were starting something new, and I certainly didn't imagine how big it would become. They needed people with experience, people who had won things and had a winning mentality. So I went there.

"The team was growing and adapting, with local players, new players arriving, and another star coming in. Then, towards the end of December, the results weren't the best, and that's when Roberto Mancini came in. We developed a very good friendship.

"Two or three times a month, he would call me into his office and say, "Sylvio, what's going on? Why is it like this?" I would tell him what I was seeing with the players. I remember it was very cold and he wanted to do two training sessions, and I said, "Look, people are angry. It's less than two degrees!"

"We finished fifth that season, and Tottenham took the Champions League place ahead of us. But I could already see that the project was serious. Then time passed and Roberto won the Premier League. It became a dream come true. The players improved, then came Pellegrini, if I remember correctly, and the club just kept growing until Pep arrived.

"It wasn't a three or four-year project where, if you didn't win, you simply went back to the beginning. It was something much more serious, and I realised that. Of course, how quickly it happened was another matter. In fact, when I was still at City with Roberto, around April or May of that season, he suddenly said to me, "Sylvio, what's next? I have to sign players. Don't you want to work with me?"

"At that time, I had already been away from home for so many years that I was thinking, "I don't know. Maybe I'm going to live in Barcelona or Sao Paulo. My parents are there. Time is passing." But he understood me perfectly. He didn't take it badly. He simply said, "Hey, Sylvio, I understand you."

"After a 20-year career travelling around the world, you start thinking about where you want to live, your wife, your children, your parents. In 2014, he eventually called me to work with him at Inter Milan."

What did you learn from Mancini about managing a team, and especially a dressing room?

"Roberto is a very special person. He's a coach, a winner, and someone with great dignity and nobility. He can get angry, and he has always been under a lot of pressure and attention, but underneath that, he is a very noble person. He always looks after his players.

"For example, he could have an argument with a player during training. They might disagree or even have a confrontation, but I knew that the next time he went into the dressing room, Roberto would say, "I need you." And the player would say, "Okay." He might have another argument with him, but on Sunday he would still put him in the team because he knew the player was good enough. That was Roberto. He understood his teams very well.

"He was also very good at developing young players. He would say, "This guy fits. This guy gives me something." Maybe the player wasn't giving him much at that particular moment, but three or four months later Roberto would say, "Now he does. I remember what you did three months ago."

"He understood that players have different personalities, and you could feel his presence in the dressing room.

"As coaches, we always say that we can learn something from everyone we work with. I can take something from Arsene Wenger, from Pep Guardiola, from Frank Rijkaard or from Mancini. But at the end of the day, I'm Sylvinho, and authenticity is authenticity. From Roberto, I take a lot of what you see in the dressing room: his presence, his personality and the way he manages his players."

Your first job as a head coach was Lyon, when you also had an offer from the Brazil U23 team. Do you ever think you should have taken the other option?

"Seven years later, you're asking me, "Did you regret it?" You're making me go crazy! But I'll answer you: yes and no. Time passes, and time is a beautiful thing. Many times, we don't like the moment we are living through, but as a coach now, I understand that difficult moments also teach you something. As a player, you can get injured and you don't want it, but you understand that it's part of life. Time gives you things, and then it also helps you heal.

"It's true that Lyon wasn't the best experience in the world for me. But that wasn't because of the club. The club was excellent, and the people there were very serious and extraordinary. I go back to the same point: everything has to work from the top of the organisation all the way down to the last player. As coaches, it's not always easy to find the right environment.

"Take our work in Albania. The president, Armando Duka, who also works with UEFA, was very clear when he called us: "This is the idea. We want you to come here and we want the best from you, because I know you can do this." And we said, "Perfect, let's go."

"We played at the European Championship in 2024 and finished first in our qualifying group, ahead of Poland and the Czech Republic. Then, in the next qualifying campaign, we finished second behind England, with Serbia also fighting for second place, and we eventually played a play-off against Poland. We lost and missed the World Cup.

"But going back to your question, no, I don't regret the decision. A club, a city, a country, Ligue 1, all of that is beautiful. The expectation is always to do better and better. But again, I come back to time. Time has helped me digest everything and understand many things.

"Sometimes you have a good coffee with someone and they say, "Hey, this is going to last a lifetime." And I say, "Calm down. Let's see if it lasts a lifetime. Let's have a second coffee, and then a third coffee." That's life.

"I was really happy with the experience, even if it was difficult. And it's also true that, with the Brazilian U23 team, there was a project there as well."

Your time with Albania started with a defeat in Poland, but you did not lose again in that campaign and qualified for the Euros. Was that the best experience of your coaching career so far?

"Yes, you're right. I worked at the World Cup with Brazil, but I was an assistant. It was a very good experience, but of course I didn't have everything in my hands. In Albania, the whole project and all the responsibility were mine. And the qualification was special. We lost to Poland in the first game, and then we didn't lose again.

"We were very strong. In fact, the teams that had to play against us didn't like it at all. They found us very organised, very good and very difficult to play against. We knew exactly what we had to do on the pitch. And in Europe, after the World Cup, I think the Euros are the biggest stage. That's where you want to be.

"Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we ended up in a very tough group with Croatia, Spain and Italy. But we enjoyed the experience. We said, "Guys, here we go." We played our best game against Croatia. It was a game we felt we had to win. Against Italy we didn't perform as well. And then there was Spain. The experience was so huge and so beautiful at the same time."

You were a Brazilian in charge of a national team that was not your own. How did you connect with the Albanian players and make them believe in your ideas?

"The players create the work and, in the end, they make everything we are trying to do possible. As a coach, and also as someone who has had a long career as a player, I know that if a coach tells you, "You have to do this, this and this," but then you don't see it happening on the pitch, you start thinking, "Well, let's see." But if the coach gives you an idea and you go out there and create two chances and almost score two goals, then you start believing. You say, "Okay, maybe this really works."

"That's our job as coaches. A huge part of the work happens behind the scenes. You can start at six, seven or eight in the morning and work until six, seven or eight in the evening. If there's a game at 8:30, you can be working until 10:30 at night. Then you have to watch the game, analyse it and prepare for the next one. In the days before a game, it can be 15 or 16 hours a day. And when the players see that work and see the images and the details, they start to understand. They say, "Hey, we believe in this." That was very important for us.

"But it wasn't only about football. I came with Doriva, who had been with me at Celta Vigo, and Pablo Zabaleta, the Argentinian former Manchester City player. Together, we developed a very good technical and tactical relationship, but also a very strong human relationship with the players and the people around the team.

"We arrived in a country where we didn't know the language. Fortunately, many people spoke Italian, and my time working with Roberto Mancini at Inter had helped me with the language as well. And there are also things that connect people. We are Latinos, South Americans, I don't know exactly how to explain it, but we like contact, hugs, sitting down together and having a good coffee.

"I remember going to the fourth floor of the federation building to have a coffee and seeing a security guard there. He was very polite and stepped back, but I said, "No, sit down." I had my coffee, sat with him for a while, chatted and then left. Those little things matter. We were the first members of the staff to live in Tirana and work every day at the federation. The president always told me, "The federation is here, so you have to live in the city." And I was happy to do that and to work closely with the team.

"The players noticed those things. They would ask me, "How do you live here in Tirana? Do you like it? Are you comfortable?" And I would say, "Of course. I'm at home, I'm with my wife. Maybe I'm not in Brazil, but I live well." Our relationship with the federation and with Albania will be eternal."

Your time with Albania ended in May 2026. Did you want to continue, or did both sides feel the cycle was over?

"We had already spoken about it with the president, and we felt that it was the end of a cycle. The federation had grown a lot, we had grown a lot, and there came a point when both sides felt that there was nothing more to add. The president, Armando Duka, is a very intelligent person. It was a very good agreement between both sides, and he knew the work we had done there every day, the tireless work.

"I remember one Saturday when he came to see the staff and said, "Please, I need all the staff here at the federation on Saturday. There are a few things to talk about."

"We said, "But we don't work on Saturdays." And he said, "I know, but I need four people here to talk." So we would sit around a table, and everyone would come happily. Four more hours of work, no problem. It was always like that.

"That's the kind of relationship we had. It was a beautiful relationship, and ultimately it was the end of a cycle for both sides."

Your old club, Arsenal, have been reborn under Mikel Arteta. How do you see what he has built there?

"That's football. Everything goes through different stages and cycles. I'm a coach now, so I see things differently. People often look at a club and say, "But why aren't they winning?" But every club goes through different periods. Look at Barcelona. There was a period when they were playing in three or four Champions League finals, and then things changed. Real Madrid have had their own cycles as well.

"When I started working with Roberto Mancini in 2014, Inter were not the same Inter that had won the treble and all those titles. They were rebuilding. Milan also went through a long period before winning another Scudetto. You could say the same about Manchester United and many other big clubs.

"That's how I see Arsenal. As a coach, you understand how difficult it is because people from all over the world are watching and expecting results. But building a team takes time.

"When I was working with Albania, we watched a lot of different teams. We looked at England and Spain, and Arsenal were one of our references. As a staff, we studied them because there were many things we could take from their way of playing. Their style was quite close to ours, and the way they move and organise themselves is something that many coaches look at.

"Arteta has won the Premier League and the FA Cup, and he has taken Arsenal back to the Champions League. You can see how much he gives to the job. From the first minute of the day until the last, you can see it in his interviews, in the way he behaves and in the way he controls the team.

"But when you talk about Mikel Arteta, you also have to look at the whole structure. As a coach, I look at everything from the top, the president, the sporting director, the manager and his staff, all the way down to the last player. Things work on the pitch when everyone understands the same idea and works towards the same objective.

"A lot of people say, "Arsenal didn't win in the first year, they didn't win in the second year..." But they were progressing. They finished second, and that is not easy.

"That's why I think you need patience. If you are building something and you finish second two or three times before eventually winning, that is still great work. For me, Arsenal have gone through those years for a reason, and they have been able to enjoy the process. Now we can see the results of that work."

You know Joan Laporta from your time at Barcelona. Now that he is president again, do you see the same passion in him?

"It's difficult for me to say because I'm not there every day, but he invited me to a game recently. Many of the people around him are still the same as when I was there, and Deco is also very close to him. Knowing Joan and knowing his passion for life, I imagine that passion for Barcelona is still there. I think it's genuine.

"And I have to say that his coach is very good. Hansi Flick is a great coach. He is doing very good work on the pitch and he has a very good relationship with the players. From what I hear and see, Barcelona are preparing very well for more successful years. I heard that they were considered one of the favourites in the Champions League, and we know how much that competition means to Barcelona. It's always an obsession there.

"But it's difficult. There have been players who were among the best in the world and still never managed to win the Champions League. Not just a few, many. When you watch Barcelona's games, there is a lot of energy on the pitch and a lot of connection. You see great players, but you can also see that there is work. Everything is serious. I see them with a lot of desire to do something important."

After so long with a national team, do you see yourself returning to club football? What is the plan for the next chapter?

"Technically and personally, I feel very prepared for the next step. I have a Brazilian, an Argentine, an Italian and other nationalities in my staff, so we have a very international group. With the languages we speak, we can work in Portugal, Spain, England, many other European countries, South America, the United States and elsewhere.

"I'm calm, because I know that you learn from everything you experience. I'm still young and there are many things I still have to learn, but life has already given me a lot. So I feel prepared to work in Europe, in the Arab world, in Brazil or even in Japan. Of course, Europe is the priority. It's the mecca of football, where the game continues to develop at the highest level.

"Now it's about waiting for the right moment. The ideal opportunity will come. It's a little bit like life. You can prepare yourself, but you also have to wait for the right moment.

"So yes, I feel very prepared for a club that has a clear project, wants to develop, wants to build something and has the conditions to do it. And I would like to do that in Europe."