In an interview with Lusa, Manuel Sérgio recalled the past as a teacher at ISEF and at the Directorate-General for Sports, before April 25, and the way in which the country, and the sports sector with it, opened up to other ways of working.

"They would ask me, abroad, why the country was involved in that war... the most recent training methods did not reach Portugal. It is no coincidence that our football progressed so much from a certain point on," he said.

In addition to praising the current president of the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF), Fernando Gomes, Manuel Sérgio noted how Portugal has drastically improved its international performances, training methods and competitiveness by becoming "an open nation today".

"This means that there is permanent contact between Portugal and other countries, and training methods are thus known that were not when we were closed to the world. People do not understand this," he explained.

He lived in a country where he was "afraid to speak, because the other guy could be an informant for the PIDE", and after April 25 he felt a change in the sector in which he worked, then presenting several elements of a critical view of the country and the sports sector.

"The fact that a country has certain characteristics also appears in sports practice. It was like that in the dictatorship, and it is like that now, when we have a freedom that we did not have," he said.

It was with this freedom that the philosopher and educator, born in 1933 and who was also a deputy and sports leader, was able to sign several works that placed him as one of the main thinkers in Portugal.

"For a new dimension of sport" and "For a renewal of national sport" were published in 1974, followed by "Sport in Democracy", in 1976, and a series of philosophical works on human motricity and sport, culminating in "For an epistemology of human motricity", in 1987.

Looking at today's football, he maintains the charm "for the beautiful sporting spectacle", but warns of a trend that he feels has been increasing.

"Today's sport has a God, the God-profit. It forces the player to give more than his health allows. Does it make any sense to have two games a week, always telling people that you are going to give your all and win? This is not good for your health, physical or psychological. This blows up with a guy," he criticizes.

Otherwise, he recalls an old maxim from his work, that "no one does high-level sports to be healthy, they do it because they are healthy", to point out the need to put "respect for the player" first.

"Money should not be worth more than a human tear. I defend a high-level sport in which there is respect for the player, and sometimes he has to subordinate himself to the imperatives of the media or the television men... he has to be respected in all circumstances, like any human being," he concludes.