| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Pedro Valdemar Soares Gonçalves | |||||||||||||||||||
| Date of birth | (1976-02-07)7 February 1976 (age 49) | |||||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Lisbon, Portugal | |||||||||||||||||||
| Team information | ||||||||||||||||||||
Current team | Young Africans | |||||||||||||||||||
| Managerial career | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||
| 1996–1997 | Amora (assistant) | |||||||||||||||||||
| 1997–2000 | Cova da Piedade (assistant) | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2000–2001 | Sporting CP (scout) | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2001–2015 | Sporting CP (academy) | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2015–2018 | Primeiro de Agosto (youth) | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2018–2019 | Angola U17 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2018–2019 | Angola U20 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2019–2025 | Angola | |||||||||||||||||||
| 2025– | Young Africans | |||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Pedro Valdemar Soares Gonçalves (born February 7, 1976) is a Portuguesefootballmanager and Head coach ofTanzanian Premier League clubYoung Africans.[1]
Gonçalves began his coaching career atAmora Futebol Clube in 1997, still as an assistant. Later, he moved toCD Cova da Piedade and then joinedSporting Clube de Portugal in 2000, first as a scout, and then as youth coach in 2001. He coached at Sporting's academy until 2015.
Also in 2015, he left toAngola where he was in charge of the under-15 and under-17 squads ofPrimeiro de Agosto, and later won the Angolan league. In 2018, he was appointed asAngola national under-17 coach. In the same year, he won theCOSOFA Cup[2] and was the protagonist of Angola's first ever qualification to theunder-17 World Cup after finishing in third place of theAfrican Cup of Nations.[3] He made history after qualifying for the round of 16.
After coaching thePalancas Negras' U-20 and U-23 teams, Gonçalves became the Angola senior national team coach in 2019,[4] a position he currently holds. He secured Angola's qualification to the2022 African Nations Championship,[5] which was held in 2023, finishing the competition in second place of Group D.
In September 2023, he made history once again by qualifying the Angolan national team for the2023 Africa Cup of Nations,[6][7] thus becoming the onlyPalancas Negras coach to qualify for both theAfrican Nations Championship and theAfrican Nations Cup.
Pedro Soares Gonçalves led Angola's best-ever group stage performance in the AFCON by picking up 7 points and two wins, something the Palancas Negras have never done before.[8] In Group D withAlgeria,Burkina Faso andMauritania, the Angolans finished first and qualified for the knockout stages of the competition.
Angola's brilliant performance was highlighted on BBC Africa with an article,[9] describing how the Angolans exceeded expectations and proved the critics wrong. The Palancas Negras broke yet another record by winning their first ever AFCON knockout round, beating Namibia 3-0 in the last 16.[10] They were then eliminated in the quarter-finals by Nigeria with a 1-0 defeat.
In June 2024, Pedro Soares Gonçalves reached 50 matches for the Angolan national team. The following month, he led Angola to win the COSAFA Cup, the first in 20 years, also becoming the most successful coach in the history of the Palancas Negras, with 24 victories (the same as Oliveira Gonçalves). Angola secured 4 wins in 5 games, including a 5-0 thrashing of Namibia in the tournament final.[11]
On September 5 2024, Pedro Soares Gonçalves broke the record for most victories with Angola, now standing alone with the highest number of wins for the Palancas Negras, after defeating the Ghana national team 1-0. This result ended Ghana's 24-year unbeaten streak at home in official matches.
On September 18 2025, Gonçalves andAngola parted ways.[12]
On October 25 2025, Gonçalves was announced byYoung Africans as their new coach.[1][13]
Angola U-17
Angola
| Team | Nat | From | To | Record | Ref. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | W | D | L | Win % | |||||
| Angola |  | 2019 | 2025 | 63 | 22 | 27 | 14 | 034.92 | |
| Career Total | 63 | 22 | 27 | 14 | 034.92 | — | |||
