Alexandre Guimarães

Alexandre Guimarães

Personal information
Full name	Alexandre Borges Guimarães
Date of birth	November 7, 1959 (1959-11-07)
Place of birth	Maceió, Alagoas, Brazil
Club information
Current club	Saprissa (Head coach)
Teams managed
Years	Team
1994–1996	Belén Siglo XXI
1996–1998	CS Herediano
1998–1999	Comunicaciones
1999–2000	Saprissa
2000–2002	Costa Rica
2002–2003	Deportivo Irapuato
2004	Dorados de Sinaloa
2005–2006	Costa Rica
2006–2008	Panama
2009–2010	Al Wasl FC
2010–2011	Al-Dhafra
2011–	Saprissa

Alexandre Borges Guimarães (born November 7, 1959) is a Brazilian-born (Maceió, Alagoas in the northeast of Brazil), Costa Rican-raised ex-footballer and coach. He arrived at Costa Rica at the age of twelve As a player, Guimarães played for Durpanel San Blas, Municipal Puntarenas, Deportivo Saprissa (the most popular soccer team of the country) and Turrialba FC. He was national champion three times with Saprissa in 1982, 1988 and 1989 and totted up 95 goals in 377 official matches.^{[citation needed]}

In addition to making 16 appearances with the Costa Rican team including three matches in the 1990 FIFA World Cup. He became a Costa Rican citizen in 1985.^{[citation needed]}

After retiring as a player, he became one of the most successful coaches in Costa Rica's history. He started coaching A.D. Belemita, the C.S. Herediano, achieving good results with both teams, this lead him to be hired by Saprissa, where he worked for several years, winning three national tournaments with them. His last Costarrican team was C. S. Cartagines, a stint that was cathastrophic, ending with his dismisal, with the team almost relegated to the second tier and in financial troubles do to high salaries on players that did not show their quality. He has also coached several teams internationally, such as CSD Comunicaciones of Guatemala, Real Irapuato and Dorados de Sinaloa in Mexico.

He is best known for his great achievements as Costa Rica's national squad head coach, leading them to an almost perfect qualifiers to the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Not having advanced to the second round, "Guima" was replaced as the head coach of the national team. Later he would regain his position, but was handed out a the squad in a bad state. Still, he led Costa Rica's team the 2006 World Cup, after which he quit from the squad given the team's poor performance in the tournament.

On November 7, 2006, on his 47th birthday, Guimaraes was chosen to the head coach position for the Panama national football team. And in April 2009, he has moved to the Middle East to start a new challenge coaching the famous United Arab Emirates Club, Al Wasl FC starting from the 2009/2010 Season.