Ricardo Filipe Lima Duarte (born 12 February 1980) is a Portuguese

football manager ''Football Manager'', also known as ''Worldwide Soccer Manager'' in North America from 2004 to 2008, is a series of football management simulation video games developed by British developer Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The game beg ...

, who most recently managed Finnish club

FC Lahti FC Lahti is a Finnish professional football club based in the city of Lahti. It currently plays in the Finnish second tier Ykkösliiga, after relegating from Veikkausliiga after the 2024 season. The homeground of Lahti is Toolpoint Arena. La ...

Veikkausliiga Veikkausliiga () is a professional association football league in Finland and the highest level of the Finnish football league system. The league comprises the top 12 clubs of the country. Its main sponsor is the Finnish national betting agenc ...

Coaching career

Duarte has worked as an assistant professor in the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; ) is a public university, public research university in Lisbon, and Portugal's largest university. It was founded in 1911, but the university's present structure dates to the 2013 merger of the former Universit ...

, teaching football in the Faculty of Human Motricity. He worked also as an assistant coach of

Primeira Liga The Primeira Liga (), also known as Liga Portugal Betclic for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Portugal and the highest level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga ...

club

Vitória de Setúbal Vitoria or Vitória may refer to: People * Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1483–1546), a Spanish Renaissance theologian * Alberto Vitoria (1956–2010), Spanish footballer * Rui Vitória (born 1970), Portuguese retired footballer * Sofia Vitória (bor ...

in the 2016–17 season. Duarte moved to Finland in 2018 and worked as an assistant coach of

Petri Vuorinen Petri Vuorinen (born 31 August 1972) is a Finnish football manager and a former player. He is currently working as the sporting director of Veikkausliiga club HJK Helsinki. Early and personal life Vuorinen was born in Sweden to Finnish parents ...

Vaasan Palloseura Vaasan Palloseura, commonly referred to as VPS, is a Finnish football club, based in Vaasa. It currently plays in the first tier of Finnish football (''Veikkausliiga''). The club's current manager is Jussi Nuorela. The club plays its home matc ...

(VPS). Later in the Autumn 2018, he was named the training director of the

Football Association of Finland The Football Association of Finland (, SPL; ) is the governing body of football (soccer), football and futsal in Finland. It was founded in Helsinki on 19 May 1907. The SPL organises the Finland national football team, men's and Finland women's ...

. On 4 August 2020, Duarte was appointed the head coach of

IF Gnistan IF Gnistan (''Kipinä'' in Finnish; ''The Spark'' in English), commonly known as Gnistan, is a Finnish football club from the city of Helsinki, founded in 1924. The club is currently playing in the Veikkausliiga, the first tier of the Finnish le ...

in Finnish second-tier

Ykkönen ''Ykkönen'' (Finnish language, Finnish for 'Number One'; , previously I divisioona) is the third highest level of the Finnish football league system (after the Veikkausliiga and Ykkösliiga), managed by the Football Association of Finland. Until ...

. In October 2021, Duarte was named the new manager of

club

AC Oulu AC Oulu is a Finnish professional football club based in Oulu, currently playing in Finland's premier division, ''Veikkausliiga''. Formed in 2002, the club have played six seasons in Finland's highest football league Veikkausliiga and 16 seasons ...

, after the sacking of Jyrki Ahola. He managed to secure the league spot for the club after defeating

Rovaniemen Palloseura Rovaniemen Palloseura (RoPS) is a football club founded in 1950 and based in Rovaniemi, Finland. RoPS played in the Finnish Premier Division, (''Veikkausliiga'') for 32 years, from 1981 to 2021. In 2021, RoPS withdrew from professional football ...

(RoPS) in the

relegation play-offs Promotion and relegation is used by sports leagues as a process where teams can move up and down among divisions in a league system, based on their performance over a season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are sometimes call ...

. At the end of the next 2022 season, Duarte managed AC Oulu to finish 7th in Veikkausliiga, after having narrowly missed the top-6. In the 2023

Finnish League Cup The Finnish League Cup (in Finnish: ''Liigacup''), is a knock-out football competition contested annually during the pre-season in winter by teams from Veikkausliiga. The competition is notably the only football competition in Europe which is most ...

, Duarte led the club to the final, where they were eventually defeated by HJK. During the

2023 Veikkausliiga The 2023 Veikkausliiga was the 93rd season of top-tier football in Finland, which takes place from April to November. The winners ( HJK, their fourth successive title win and thirty-third overall) qualified for the Champions League first qualif ...

season, he helped the club to establish themselves in the league, but on 17 August 2023, it was announced that he would leave AC Oulu after the season as his option was not exercised. However, on 25 August 2023, his contract was terminated with the immediate effect after the loss against

Ilves Tampereen Ilves, commonly known as Ilves, (; Finnish language, Finnish for "Eurasian lynx, Lynx") is a Finnish professional ice hockey team based in Tampere. They play in the Liiga at the Nokia Arena (Tampere), Nokia Arena. The colors of Ilves, ...

in the semi-final of the

2023 Finnish Cup The 2023 Finnish Cup was the 69th season of the Finnish Cup football competition. The winners qualified for the 2024–25 Conference League second qualifying round. Ilves won the cup on 30 September 2023 with a 2–1 win over Honka, their fourt ...

and the poor results in the league. On 30 October 2023, Duarte returned to Portugal when he was appointed the head coach of Vianense in Liga 3. He was dismissed on 29 January 2024 after nine league matches, with a record of one win, three draws and five losses. On 21 June 2024, he was named the manager of

in Veikkausliiga, after the sacking of Toni Lindberg. The club had performed poorly and were close to the relegation zone. With Duarte as a manager, Lahti had few promising results, but in the end they finished 11th in the league. Duarte couldn't help the club from relegating, after being defeated 2–1 by

FF Jaro Fotbollsföreningen Jaro (''Jakobstads Rostfria''), commonly known simply as Jaro, is a Finnish professional football club based in the bilingual town of Jakobstad. The club currently plays in Veikkausliiga, the top tier in Finland. History Ja ...

in the

in late October.

Managerial statistics

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Duarte, Ricardo 1980 births Living people Portuguese football managers Portuguese football coaches Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Finland Expatriate football managers in Finland Veikkausliiga managers IF Gnistan managers AC Oulu managers FC Lahti managers University of Lisbon alumni SC Vianense managers Portuguese expatriate football managers Vaasan Palloseura non-playing staff