Nuno Herlander Simoes Espirito Santo is a rarity in football, a goalkeeper who entered the world of club management post-retirement. In doing so he joined a select group that includes former Everton boss Mike Walker and ex-West Ham gaffer Julen Lopetegui.
“Of course you learn a lot as a player when you pay attention to managers when they speak to you,” he once said but naturally taking on the reins at Rio Ave – his first coaching role – must have been a daunting time.
His only other experience in this regard was helping the keepers go through their paces at Malaga.
But Santo was a big success at Rio Ave, just like he subsequently was a hit at Valencia and Wolves, and even if there has been some big bumps in the road – namely his brief tenure at Spurs and the manner of his departure at Nottingham Forest – the 51-year-old has long established himself now as one of the foremost coaches in European football.
How Much Is Nuno Espirito Santo Worth?
The bulk of Santo’s fortune has been earned across his managerial career, his wages at Porto and Dynamo healthy enough but nothing earth-shattering.
At Wolves he was reported to be on £1m a year, a figure that doubled post-promotion. Paid off at Spurs he took home a staggering £14m for three months of relative failure.
Similarly, £6m was paid into his account when he departed Saudi.
At Forest, he was on £2m a year, prior to bonuses that will surely have been paid out given their success. All told, the 51-year-old net worth is estimated to be £22m plus.
Playing Career
Born on January 25th, 1974, Santo grew up on the African island of São Tomé, an idyll made up of seven square miles of sugarcane, forests and beautiful beaches.
Indeed, Santo only had to cross the road outside his house to reach the sea and, as a boy, he would throw rocks into the ocean to gauge its depth before diving in. On many occasions since, he has joked that his early love of diving directly led to picking up a pair of goalkeeper gloves.
Showing an acute aptitude for keeping, Santo’s first professional club was Vitoria Guimaraes who he joined aged 18 in 1992. Alas, he found it difficult to dislodge their resident number one and by the end of his fourth campaign there, Santo had grown frustrated of being a peripheral figure with the ‘Conquerors’.
This frustration coincided with a chance meeting one evening with a Porto nightclub boss named Jorge Mendes who relayed to Santo that he was trying to break into the footballing world as an agent. He wanted the keeper as his first client.
Mendes presently represents Cristiano Ronaldo and Lamine Yamal along with countless other household names.
And it was he who brokered a £1m deal for the keeper to switch to Deportivo La Coruna in 1997 though again Santo was unable to cement a regular starting spot. Loan spells followed before Porto – managed by Jose Mourinho, another Mendes client – signed him for €3m in 2002.
It was a similar story at the Estadio do Dragao, Santo playing second fiddle to Vitor Baia, but at least being a member of the squad garnered him medals. He claimed two Primeira Liga title medals, a Champions League gong, as well as Porto winning the Uefa Cup.
In 2005, towards the tail-end of a 18-year playing career, Nuno Santo finally secured a number one jersey when joining Dynamo Moscow. He may have only stayed for a single season in Russia but it all added to a footballing education he would take into coaching.
Management
From the off at Rio Ave, Santo transformed their fortunes, although technically that isn’t true. They did, after all, lose their first game he took charge of. Beyond that however, he tightened things up at the back, got them firing at the business end, and guided them steadily up the Portuguese top-flight.
In his second campaign there the Rioavistas reached both domestic cup finals which in turn qualified them for European competition for the first time in their history.
Unsurprisingly, his success in Vila do Conde put him on several clubs’ radars with Valencia winning the chase in July 2014. During his 18-month stint in La Liga, Santo took the Murciélagos to fourth, in doing so securing them a Champions League berth.
Regrettably, such is the high demands from Spain’s leading clubs that even this feat wasn’t deemed good enough and by November of the following year he was gone.
Santo wasn’t unemployed for long, his former club Porto swooping the next summer, but if the expectations are lofty in Spain, at Porto they are sky-high, the giant of that region seasonal favourites in the betting to win prizes.
Finishing second in his first, and only, season there resulted in the boot, almost inevitably.
Wolves then came onto the scene with a different agenda, requiring Santo to take the Black Country side into the English elite for the first time in 14 years. This he duly did at the first time of asking, with a team that outscored the rest of the Championship that year while also conceding a meagre 39 goals.
Just as impressively he then set about making Wolves competitive in the top-flight, even guiding them into Europe in their second campaign courtesy of a 7th place finish. At that juncture it was a certainty that a bigger club would pounce, sooner or later.
That inevitability occurred on June 30th, 2021, when Spurs made their move.
Simply put, Tottenham was a bad fit for Santo. He was a square peg when they needed a round hole and though the results were initially encouraging performances suffered thereafter. He was sacked just 17 games in.
His reputation bruised, Santo dusted himself down, and soon after accepted a king’s ransom to take charge at Al-Ittihad in Saudi Arabia. He won his first league title as a coach out there.
Lastly, we come to Nottingham Forest and what the Tricky Trees got was the Wolves Santo, a man who got the best out of his players and had them perform as a cohesive, hard-working unit.
For two seasons running Forest belied their Premier League odds, posting high finishes in the table.
Regrettably, it all unravelled in the East Midlands when friction developed between Santo and Forest’s owner Evangelos Marinakis, the coach even going on public record and candidly admitting they were no longer allies.
There was only going to be one winner.
