Villas Boas was virtually unheard of when he was appointed by Academica Coimbra in 2009 but less than two years later he is being compared to Portugal's most successful coach, Jose Mourinho, and with good reason.
In his first season in charge of Porto he has won the Portuguese title without losing a game and the 33-year-old's stock is set to rise even higher should he plot Europa League glory in the final against Braga in Dublin on Wednesday.
"It was a gamble, but he had the skills we needed. He made his ideas clear at the first meeting and took away any doubts," Academica's sporting director Luis Agostinho, who plucked Villas Boas from Inter Milan where he was working as Mourinho's assistant, told Reuters.
"Within weeks I knew he was headed for the top. He scores highly in every area I believe a coach needs to control - tactics, player motivation, fitness."
Like Mourinho, who he also worked with at Chelsea, Villas Boas's tactical flair was spotted by the late Bobby Robson, the vastly experienced former England coach who first came into contact with him while in charge of Porto.
Impressed with the teenager's passion, Robson helped him take coaching courses and introduced him to Mourinho, who hired Villas Boas as a scout on his return Porto in 2002.
"Both of them marked me. Robson gave me ideas and I grew up around Mourinho," Villas Boas said at the start of the season.
"We had already been approached by Sporting, but when his beloved Porto called, you could see Villas Boas' joy immediately," Agostinho said.
His Porto side, the first to win a Portuguese title undefeated since Benfica in 1973, has more attacking flair than Mourinho's super-organised, pragmatic version that won the Champions League in 2004 and he prefers the possession game perfected by Pep Guardiola at Barcelona.
