Carlos Alberto Souto Maior Silva Batista (born 20 December 1972), commonly known as Calita, is a Portuguese former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who played as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Football career

Calita started his career with

Imortal DC Imortal Desportivo Clube ''(abbreviated as Imortal DC and colloquially known as Imortal de Albufeira)'' is a Portuguese sports club centered around a football club based in the city of Albufeira, in the Portuguese region of Algarve. Imortal has ...

. He had only played in seven

Primeira Liga The Primeira Liga (; English: Premier League, also written as Liga Portugal 1), also known as Liga Portugal Bwin for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga Portugal, ...

games for

S.C. Farense Sporting Clube Farense, simply known as Farense, is a Portuguese professional football club based in Faro in the district of the same name and the region of Algarve. Founded in 1910, the club will play the 2021–22 season in the Liga Portugal ...

when he was purchased by

Coventry City Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. The team currently compete in the EFL Championship, Championship, the second tier of the English footbal ...

on 5 July 1995, after failing a trial at Blackburn Rovers, for a fee reported as ranging from £125,000 to £350,000. He never broke into the first team with the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

club and finished 1995–96 back in his country with Boavista, also in the top division. During his short spell in England, he was known as Carlita. He was the first Portuguese footballer to be signed by an English

club. But he later revealed that he joined Coventry City after having been made false salary promises, and he left the club because his actual income was barely enough to live on. From 1997 until his retirement two decades later, Calita never played higher than the third level of Portuguese football and predominantly competed in the second regional division, with most of the teams hailing from the

Algarve The Algarve (, , ; from ) is the southernmost NUTS II region of continental Portugal. It has an area of with 467,495 permanent inhabitants and incorporates 16 municipalities ( ''concelhos'' or ''municípios'' in Portuguese). The region has it ...

region.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Calita 1972 births Living people Portuguese footballers Association football midfielders Primeira Liga players Segunda Divisão players Imortal D.C. players C.D. Nacional players S.C. Farense players Louletano D.C. players Boavista F.C. players Coventry City F.C. players Portuguese expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in England Footballers from Lisbon