What Hugo Viana really thought about Newcastle United
Manchester City's next sporting director Hugo Viana gave a revealing interview about his time at Newcastle United – a decade after £8.5m move.
Some interviews are worth hanging around for as a football journalist.
Sports reporters will literally spend days of their lives each season waiting to speak to players after games, and often the longest waits are rewarded with the best interviews.
So back in 2012 in Faro, Portugal, I was waiting in an informal mixed zone as players and staff filed out of the Estadio Algarve.
Unusually, the wait was for a player from the opposition team.
Newcastle United, then managed by Alan Pardew, had just won the Guadiana Trophy after beating Sporting Braga 2-1 in front of a few hundred fans at the futuristic Estadio Algarve.
The Braga team bus was waiting to leave as this player, a figure from the club’s past, finally left the dressing room.
Gifted footballer
The player was Hugo Viana, a midfielder I had watched and reported on during his time at St James’ Park.
Memorably, Viana had scored for Newcastle in the dramatic 3-2 win over Feyenoord at De Kuip which had sent the club into the Champions League’s second group stage.
It was this week revealed that Viana is set to become Manchester City’s next director of football.
Back then in Faro, Viana was still directing things on the field.
Viana, signed in 2002 by Sir Bobby Robson, was a gifted playmaker, but he found his opportunities limited at the club by the form of Gary Speed, an extraordinary footballer and competitor who I was fortunate to get to know in my early years as a football writer.
The Portugal international had been recruited from Sporting Lisbon by Sir Bobby’s trusted chief scout Charlie Woods, an astute judge of a player.
“I watched him in the European Under-21 Championships in Switzerland,” Woods told Newcastle Notes earlier this year.
“I saw him play a couple of times for Portugal. He was outstanding. I did a report. I think Bobby might have made a few phone calls to the people he knew in Portugal, and we signed him.
“Lovely left foot. He could pass the ball beautifully. He worked hard.”
Viana spent four years at Newcastle, but two of those were spent out on loan at former club Sporting and Valencia, the team he would join on a permanent deal in 2006.
The £8.5million move hadn’t quite worked out, but that was less a reflection on Viana, and his undoubted talent and potential, and more about what Speed – who tragically took his own life in 2011 – had brought to that particular team.
Viana’s wife, many, many years later, would tell Woods about her role in his eventual departure from Newcastle.
Woods added: “I met his wife at Bobby’s golf tournament with Hugo in Portugal. She felt it was her who dragged him away from Newcastle. That’s how he went back home.”
Back to Faro, and Viana – who had a successful spell at Braga late in his career – happily stopped to speak by the players’ entrance as the Braga coach waited to depart a few yards away.
And what struck me in that short interview was the genuine affection he felt for his former club, despite the lack of opportunities.
A decade on from his move, Viana had no regrets.
"I was special, for me, because it was my first club outside of Portugal,” said Viana, who smiled as he recalled his time on Tyneside. "I didn't play so much – I never had a lot of opportunities to play as a midfielder – but I'm not angry with anyone.
"My time in Newcastle was good, it was a very good experience. The fans were unbelievable, so it was a pleasure for me.”
Viana added: “I hope they can play in the Champions League again, like we did under Sir Bobby Robson. They were great moments."
The interview was brought to an abrupt end as Viana was ordered on to the bus.
Viana – who had been named as the player of the tournament – had caught up with long-serving goalkeeper Steve Harper and some backroom staff at the stadium.
"I was nice to see a few very good guys that I had the pleasure to meet in Newcastle,” he said. "I had great moments with them.
"I had a conversation with Steve Harper about Gary Speed. It was a shock – he was a good friend to me and a great guy."
Hours after Speed’s death the previous November, Viana had pulled off his Braga jersey after a game against Porto to reveal a white t-shirt with the message “Gary – Rest In Peace”.
Premier League return
Viana – who hung up his boots in 2016 after a spell playing in Dubai, aged 33 – returned to Lisbon and rejoined Sporting as director of football six years ago.
Today, he’s preparing set for a return to England, having agreed to succeed Txiki Begiristain as City’s sporting director at the end of the season.
Viana is highly regarded at Sporting, with the club having won the Portuguese title twice during his tenure.
And the role, one of the biggest of its kind in European football, will pit him against Newcastle for the first time since he played against the club that night at the Estadio Algarve.