Filipe Luis: The Flamengo coach who is making a hard job look easy

New York Times

2 days ago

As a player, Filipe Luis worked with some of the most influential coaches of the modern era. Diego Simeone, Jose Mourinho, Jorge Jesus: they all left their mark on him, shaped his ideas about football.
If one single maxim stuck in his mind, though, it was the one made famous by Luis Aragones, the former Atletico Madrid and Spain manager: 'Win, win and win again,' was how Aragones defined his non-philosophy. No rigid ideological beliefs, no high-mindedness. Just find a way, then repeat.
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'That's the only path in football,' Filipe Luis said in an interview with FIFA.com at the start of the month. 'I don't consider myself a philosophical guy. I'm very practical. I don't like to set out a big objective beyond winning the next match.'
At that point, his Flamengo side had not begun their Club World Cup campaign. They had not yet beaten Esperance, not yet played Chelsea off the park in Philadelphia, not yet finished top of Group D. Had you offered all of that to the club's fans, they'd have snapped your arm off. Had you offered it to Filipe Luis, he'd have told you off for thinking too far ahead.
That approach has paid dividends since he took charge of Flamengo's first team eight months ago. It is a notoriously tricky job. Flamengo's fanbase is the biggest in Brazil and probably the most demanding. Some very good managers have been chewed up and spat out over the years.
Filipe Luis grew up a Flamengo fan. He played 175 times for the club between 2019 and 2023, winning two Brazilian championships and two Copa Libertadores titles but also tasting the despair that never seems far from the surface. He knew what he was getting into, knew that failing might cast a shadow on the good times.
He went for it anyway. And, so far, he has made it all look easy.
A left-back of rare poise and grace, Filipe Luis was a fixture of the Atletico Madrid side that lost two Champions League finals to city rivals Real. He played 44 times for Brazil, went to the 2018 World Cup, took home a Copa America winner's medal the following year.
Off the pitch, he was an atypical footballer, as well as a journalist's dream. This was a guy who was more comfortable talking about politics, culture and current affairs than he was moaning about referees. 'Cinema moulded my personality,' he told The Guardian in 2021. In a wide-ranging interview with El Mundo in 2017, he shared his views on Catalan separatism, state ownership of football and even science. 'I'm passionate about astrophysics,' he said. 'I need to understand even though I know we will never understand everything.'
Even then, he knew he wanted to become a coach. That ambition only came into greater focus at Flamengo. He took on a leadership role under Portuguese manager Jorge Jesus, took it upon himself to analyse opponents and team-mates. 'He was always in his room, watching matches, sending us videos,' former team-mate Gabriel Barbosa recalled in December.
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Things happened fast after he hung up his boots in December 2023. Filipe started off coaching Flamengo's under-17 s but soon got promoted to the under-20s. When Tite — Filipe Luis' old Brazil manager — was fired last September, he was fast-tracked to the first team.
He inherited a good side, but one that was too polite, too passive in the final third. That didn't sit right with him. 'I want us to be a team that makes things hard for our opponents,' he said at his unveiling. 'Flamengo have to play in a certain way: always pressuring, always attacking. That's non-negotiable.'
He had the advantage of knowing the squad inside-out. Even now, most of Flamengo's players are former team-mates. The changes he made in those first weeks — a higher press, greater urgency, a couple of positional tweaks, more faith in Barbosa and young full-back Wesley — were subtle but impactful. Nine game games into his reign, Flamengo won the Brazilian Cup.
The early impressions could not have been more positive. 'He was so well prepared,' says Vinicius Bergantin, Filipe Luis' assistant coach between September 2024 and February 2025.
'He was studious, restless, always thinking about the little details, always wanting to go deeper. He always explained to the players why we were doing certain things, how it fed into his style of play, how it was relevant to the next opponent. Everything made sense.'
That chimes with the view of Jose Boto, who arrived as Flamengo's director of football in December and was immediately bowled over.
'I could see his quality from the first moment,' Boto tells The Athletic. 'The first that struck me was his work ethic. He's completely dedicated and works around the clock. He has this need to learn, to understand everything. He also has this wealth of tactical knowledge, which is particularly impressive for someone who retired so recently.'
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On the training ground, Filipe Luis is busy and hands-on. The players feel they can talk to him as a peer. 'He doesn't think he's the sole owner of the truth,' winger Michael said in January. 'He knows how to listen.' Bergantin agrees: 'He's collaborative. He wants to bring out the qualities in every player.'
Between 22 January and 9 April, Flamengo went on a 16-match unbeaten run. They won 13 of those games. The sequence took them to the Rio state championship title. The style of play also sparked comparisons with the great Flamengo team of the 1980s.
'We haven't seen football like this for many years,' Andrade, part of the Flamengo side that beat Liverpool in the 1981 Intercontinental Cup, told GloboEsporte. 'They play like we did, always in the opposition half, always looking to hurt the opposition. This is the kind of team Flamengo fans dream about.'
Not just Flamengo fans. When Brazil dismissed Dorival Junior in March, many saw Filipe Luis as the ideal replacement. 'People want to see Brazil play like Brazil again, just as our fans wanted to see Flamengo play more like Flamengo,' said Flamengo president Luiz Eduardo Baptista, phlegmatically. 'I don't have the slightest doubt that he'll coach the national team one day. But I know Felipe and I would be surprised if he took on that challenge now.'
He didn't. In typical fashion, Flamengo's form then wavered: two underwhelming performances against Argentine side Central de Cordoba left them teetering on the brink of early elimination from the Libertadores. For the first time, Filipe Luis was forced into some crisis management.
'The turbulence is external,' he insisted on 10 May. 'Internally, the players continue to believe, to work, to fight, to learn, to improve. I have complete conviction in what I am doing. I really believe in my work.'
Results improved. Flamengo ground out two wins to progress in the Libertadores, made a commanding start to the national championship. When the latter paused for the Club World Cup, Flamengo were top on goal difference. They have scored the most goals in the league and conceded the fewest.
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Their manager, of course, will not have let that form go to his head. Simeone — the first person he texted after the Brazilian Cup win — is an enduring influence; Filipe Luis often quotes the Argentine's 'game by game' mantra. 'I define myself as a coach without memory,' he said in a press conference in November. 'I like to delete everything and go on to the next challenge.'
The group stage, that Chelsea result? All in the rear-view. Next up? Bayern Munich and another chance to test himself against a major European team. For those who know him, there is a degree of confidence that we will be seeing a lot more of Filipe Luis on the world stage in the years ahead.
'He has a very clear idea of what he wants,' says Boto. 'I have no doubt that he will soon be seen as one of the top coaches in the world.'
Bergantin disagrees, but only slightly. 'I think he already is,' he says.