Barnsley have today suprised arguably the footballing world by appointing Jose Morais as the club's new head coach.
The news comes less than 24 hours after Scottish Championship leaders St Mirren revealed their manager Jack Ross had opted to stay in Paisley following talks at Oakwell.
Morais is arguably most known for being part of current Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho's coaching staff for a number of years.
The 52 year old first met the self proclaimed Special One at Benfica and worked under him as assistant between 1999 and 2001. Morais then went off to become a manager in his own right, enjoying spells at Estoril, Westfalia Herne and Dresdner SC before rejoining Mourinho at Porto in 2003, famously helping the club win the Champions League in 2003-2004.
Following this Mourinho left for Chelsea and Morais moved onto to take control of Santa Clara, Assyriska Föreningen (2005), Al Hazm (2007-2008), Stade Tunisien (2008), the Yemen national side (2008) and Espérance (2008-2009) before again joining back up with Mourinho, this time at Italian giants Inter Milan and again he got his hands on silverware, helping to deliver a historic treble of Serie A, Coppa Italia and the club's third European Cup and first for 45 years.
These achievements saw Mourinho hired by Real Madrid and Morais went with him to the Bernabeu where they delivered 1 La Liga, 1 Copa Del Rey and 1 Supercopa de España during a three year spell.
The summer of 2013 saw a return to Chelsea for Mourinho and this time Morais went to Stamford Bridge with him. There was to be no silverware for Morais as Chelsea finished third in the Premier League, were knocked out of the FA Cup (fifth round), League Cup (fifth round) and Champions League (semi-finals).
This prompted Morais to head to Saudi Arabia where he become manager of Al Shabab, winning the Saudi Super Cup in 2014-2015 but he opted to return to Chelsea in 2015-2016 in a season where the Blues disastrous title defence saw them finish 10th and Mourinho had been fired by the December.
Morais moved on to Turkey where he took over at Antalyspor, but only lasted until October 2016, leaving the side 18th in the Super Lig (they went on to recover and finish fifth)
Within ten days of his departure he was globetrotting again, moving to Greece to take over at AEK Athens, winning three and drawing eight of 14 games in charge before surprisingly resigning in January 2017 with the club in sixth place in the SuperLeague.
Morais who can speak seven different languages has been handed an 18 month contract at Oakwell (a significant difference to the 12 month rolling deals Paul Heckingbottom signed previously) and according to chief executive Gauthier Ganaye had been the Reds "number one target" and attended last weekend's draw with Sheffield Wednesday.
He continued: "“We’re really, really pleased to have secured the club’s number one target from the start of the process,”
“We invited Jose to the Sheffield Wednesday match and began talks immediately with him and his representatives.
“To be fully transparent, we ran a fair and full interview process. We spoke to a lot of head coaches who were both in and out of employment.
“The interviewed candidates were all strong contenders, but the unanimous decision was to appoint Jose who instilled the full board with the belief that he is the right man to lead us up the table, whilst bringing excitement back to the Club with an attacking style and goals for the fans to enjoy.
“We now look ahead to a vital part of the season under Jose’s leadership."
Morais has brought 49 year old Dimas Teixeira (who turned 49 today) with him as his assistant. Dimas enjoyed a glittering playing career with Académica, Estrela Amadora, Vitória Guimarães, Benfica, Juventus, Fenerbahçe, Standard Liège and Sporting Lisbon, winning 2 Taca de Portugals, 2 Serie As, 1 Supercoppa Italiana, 1 Primeria Liga whilst he was also a Champions League, Supercoppa Italiana and Belgian Cup runner up and he won 44 caps for Portugal between 1995 and 2002.
Incidentally, Morais is only the second ever foreign manager of Barnsley FC, after Icelander Gudjon Thordarson between 2003 and 2004.