28/10/2025
Memorial Service for Coach Manuel Lopes Lourenço.
Below is the Eulogy which was delivered by Alberto Menezes at the Julinho Athletic FC Memorial Service yesterday, 27 October 2025.
Good evening, family, friends, players, coaches, and our wider football community here in Rundu and joining us online. My name is Alberto Menezes, and on behalf of Julinho Athletic FC, thank you for gathering to honour the life of Coach Júlio Lourenço, a husband, a son, a friend, a teammate, a mentor, and for us, a builder of people and pathways.
Before we begin, I ask that we hold a brief moment of silence, for Coach Júlio, and for all who travel with grief tonight.
[pause]
Júlio’s story begins in Portugal, where football is a first language. As a teenager he learned the game in the youth ranks of Vitória Setúbal FC . Those years forged the habits we all came to recognise: discipline without harshness, seriousness without pride, and a respect for the work that happens far from the spotlight. He carried those habits into a senior playing career across the Portuguese leagues, Palmelense, Pinhalnovense, Alcacerense, where teammates remember a reliable professional who read the game as much as he played it.
When the boots went quiet, the whistle began to speak. From 2006 to 2019 he served his local football community in Portugal, coaching youths, coordinating teams, and building simple, sturdy structures that helped young players progress. He believed football should be organised enough to be fair, and free enough to be joyful.
His journey then widened to southern Africa. From 2020 to 2023 he worked in South Africa in academy environments, guiding talent identification camps and supporting young players on the long road from potential to opportunity. In Namibia, first through coach mentorship and academy support in Windhoek, he deepened what would become a profound bond with this country and its children.
In the middle of 2025, Júlio joined Julinho Athletic FC with a dual purpose: to expand our academies across Namibia and to serve as assistant coach for our Premier League side. He arrived quietly, as builders do. He listened more than he spoke. He watched sessions, spoke to coaches, greeted parents, and learned the rhythm of our club. Then, gently, firmly, he began to stitch things together.
He helped us connect grassroots to U-23 to first team, not as a slogan but as a real pathway: clear training standards, practical session plans, and individual development goals for players. He encouraged coach education days because, as he put it, the best legacy of a good coach is more good coaches. He cared about the child who was still learning to pass, and the senior player preparing for match day, because both, to him, were people first.
What did he teach us? That development comes before results, and that when we do development right, results will visit us often enough. That discipline and kindness are not opposites in football; they are teammates. That a true academy is not a place where trophies are stored, but where doors are opened.
He loved to work with our young Lions. Some of you here tonight can remember how he stood behind you during a drill and quietly shifted your feet, or the way he nodded when your first touch landed just right. He celebrated small wins because he knew they become the big ones. He gave us a language for growth: little improvements, repeated often, with care.
Júlio also understood the costs and sacrifices that football asks of families. He thanked parents for every trip, every early morning, every packed lunch. He treated our staff, kit men, drivers, physios, administrators—with the same respect he showed any head coach. He made us feel that every role matters, because in his world, it truly did.
Tonight, we also honour the human being behind the coach. He faced life’s storms with courage and dignity. He chose hope, by investing his time, his expertise, and his heart into young people and into this club. He did not just come to work in Namibia; he came to belong.
To Júlio’s family in Portugal—à família do Mister em Portugal, recebam o nosso abraço sincero. Obrigado por partilharem o Júlio connosco. A vossa dor é a nossa dor; a vossa saudade, também a nossa. Prometemos cuidar do legado que ele começou aqui.
And to our players: carry what he gave you. Be early. Be curious. Be brave enough to ask for feedback and strong enough to give it. Work on your first touch. Encourage a teammate. Help a younger player. Remember that what you build in training today might be the opportunity you need tomorrow. That is how we keep him with us.
To our coaches and staff: let’s continue the things he set in motion, the academy reach, the clarity of our pathway, the care for fundamentals, and the humility to learn. Let us keep the doors open wider, and the standards high. Let us be the kind of club that Júlio believed we could be.
As Julinho Athletic, we will remember him not only with words, but with work, with programmes that grow, with players who flourish, with coaches who keep learning, and with a community that keeps welcoming children into the game. That is the memorial he would have wanted most.
There is a passage in football that each of us understands without needing to say it: the moment after the final whistle, when we look back and ask if we played the game the right way. By that measure, Júlio’s life was a match played with honour. He loved the game. He served people. He left things better than he found them.
Coach Júlio, thank you, for your gentleness, your standards, your patience, and your faith in our young Lions. We will miss your presence on the touchline and your quiet nod when a drill finally clicked. But we will see you again, in the confident shoulders of a child who just learned to pass, in the steady leadership of a young coach you inspired, and in the green of this club you helped to grow.
May you rest in peace. May your memory be a blessing. And may we be worthy of the legacy you left in our care.
Obrigado, Mister Júlio. Rest well.
📸 Mario Luis Media
