Toni

António José da Conceição Oliveira, universally known as Toni, was born in Mogofores, in the district of Anadia, on 14 October 1946. He joined Benfica in 1968 and stayed thirteen years as a midfielder, making 391 competitive appearances, winning eight championships and four Taças de Portugal and earning 32 caps for Portugal. Few men have given the club more as a player, and fewer still went on to give it as much from the bench.

He stayed at the Luz after retiring, working as an assistant from 1982, and had three separate spells as head coach rather than one long tenure. He took over in November 1987 and led Benfica to the 1988 European Cup final in Stuttgart, lost to PSV Eindhoven on penalties after a goalless two hours, then won the championship in 1988/89 before leaving in 1989. He returned in 1992, won the Taça de Portugal in 1992/93 and the championship in 1993/94 — the last title the club would win for eleven years — and departed in 1994. A third spell, from 2000 until December 2001, brought no trophies; his final match was a 1-0 defeat at Boavista on 23 December 2001. Across the three he took charge of 216 matches and won 127.

He coached in the Benfica idiom he had grown up in: a settled side, attacking full-backs, technical midfielders trusted to find their own solutions, and a preference for continuity over upheaval. Afterwards he managed Bordeaux, winning the Intertoto Cup in 1995, and Sevilla, then built a long second career in Asia and the Middle East with Shenyang Jinde, Al Ahly, Al-Ettifaq, Al-Sharjah, Al-Ittihad, Tractor, with whom he won the Iranian cup in 2013/14, and Kazma.