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Former Liverpool coach Vitor Matos, who worked with Jurgen Klopp and Pep Lijnders at Anfield, is among the contenders to replace the fired Alan Sheehan at Swansea City.
The Championship side parted ways with Sheehan after a slow start to the new season. Swansea is currently 18th in the second tier with 17 points from its first 15 games of the campaign — its worst run since it was relegated from the Premier League.
Swansea was forced to make fresh plans after number one target Kim Hellberg, of Hammarby IF, pulled out of the running to open talks with Middlesbrough after Rob Edwards moved to Wolves. Former Liverpool coach Matos has therefore emerged as an option.
According to talkSPORT, Matos is now the leading contender for the job in Wales.
Matos took over at Maritimo in June. That was his first senior head coaching role, and the 37-year-old has Maritimo third in the Portuguese second tier after 11 games.
Maritimo, based on the island of Madeira, finished 12th out of 18 clubs in the second division last season, so he has shown substantial improvement in performances and results. It currently has 20 points, two fewer than first-placed Sporting CP B.
The season before last, Matos started out as assistant coach to Pep Lijnders at Red Bull Salzburg in the Austrian Bundesliga, but the pair were fired halfway through the campaign. He then moved to Portugal in the summer.
Formerly at FC Porto, Matos joined Liverpool as elite development coach in 2019, where he was tasked with providing a bridge between the academy and the Reds' first team — a role that Lijnders previously held.
"He is a talented coach, a very intelligent coach," Lijnders said. "He can make the next step with all these young players. We have already seen the impact he has made on them.
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"Having one really intelligent, talented coach for young players, he can inspire eight or nine of them — it's really important to have the right people in front of them — he connects, he influences the boys on the pitch and trains with them."
"What Arne Slot did is outstanding, because it is not easy to replace Jurgen," Matos told Training Ground Guru in March. "We tried to leave the club — and Jurgen left the club — in a really good moment.
"The idea was to leave the club in a better position than when he arrived. The squad we left, we all had a feeling it was a squad ready to win titles.
"They have an unbelievable team in terms of togetherness. But it’s not easy to come to Liverpool, a big club, and replace Jurgen, someone who was so loved by everyone."
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