Carlos Miguel Mondim Saleiro (born 25 February 1986) is a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

former professional

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

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

. The first baby in Portugal to be born through

in vitro fertilisation In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm in vitro ("in glass"). The process involves monitoring and stimulating an individual's ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) ...

treatment (IVF), he began his career at

Sporting CP Sporting Clube de Portugal, founded Sporting Club de Portugal (), otherwise referred to as Sporting CP, often known abroad as Sporting Lisbon , is a Portuguese professional sports club based in Lisbon. It is best known for the professional foot ...

. He played for

Sporting B Sporting Clube de Portugal B is the reserve team of Portuguese football club Sporting CP, a team based in Lisbon. Reserve teams in Portugal play in the same league system as the senior team, rather than in a reserve team league. However, they cann ...

in the 2003–04 season, and won caps at every level of Portuguese international football from under-17 to under-23. He helped his country to win the

UEFA European Under-17 Championship The UEFA European Under-17 Championship or simply UEFA Under-17 Championship, is an annual football competition contested by the European men's under-17 national teams of the member associations of UEFA. Spain is the most successful team in this ...

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

and the

International Challenge Trophy The International Challenge Trophy, originally known as the European Challenge Trophy, is an international association football competition. It is open to national teams featuring semi-professional U-23 footballers who have not yet won senior inter ...

in 2009–11. He was loaned out to Olivais e Moscavide from 2005 to 2007, and helped the club to win promotion out of the

Segunda Divisão The Segunda Divisão Portuguesa (English language, English: ''Portuguese Second Division'') was a association football, football league situated at the third level of the Portuguese football league system. The division had previously been the secon ...

in 2005–06. He spent the 2007–08 season on loan at Fátima, and was loaned out to

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, ...

clubs

Vitória Setúbal Vitoria or Vitória may refer to : People * Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1483–1546), a Spanish Renaissance theologian * Alberto Vitoria (1956–2010), Spanish footballer * Rui Vitória (born 1970), Portuguese retired footballer * Steven Vitória (b ...

and Académica in the 2008–09 campaign. He made his first team debut for Sporting CP in August 2009, and went on to make 67 first team appearances in two seasons before he moved to

Swiss Super League The Swiss Super League (known as the Credit Suisse Super League for sponsorship reasons) is a Swiss professional league in the top tier of the Swiss football league system and has been played in its current format since the 2003–04 season ...

side

Servette Servette is a district of the city of Geneva, Switzerland. The district's name comes from the Latin word for forest, ''silva'', and means "little forest". Its name alludes to Servette's rural past, before Geneva grew beyond its walls and incorpora ...

in July 2011. He signed with Académica in June 2012, and then after a year out of the game joined

Oriental The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of ''Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the ...

in July 2014. He signed with English club

Port Vale Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley o ...

in July 2016, but left after just six weeks.

Club career

Sporting CP

Carlos Miguel Mondim Saleiro was born in

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

on 25 February 1986, and was the first baby in Portugal to be born through

treatment (IVF). He spent his youth at

youth academy In sporting terminology, a youth system (or youth academy) is a youth investment program within a particular team or league, which develops and nurtures young talent in farm teams, with the vision of using them in the first team in the future if t ...

, and spent the 2003–04 season with

, scoring three goals in 35 Segunda Divisão – Zona Sul (third tier) matches as they were relegated into the

Terceira Divisão The Terceira Divisão Portuguesa (in English: ''Portuguese Third Division'') was a football league in Portugal, situated at the fourth level of the Portuguese football league system. The Third Division was initially the third level of the Portugue ...

(fourth tier). He spent the latter half of the 2005–06 campaign on loan at Olivais e Moscavide in Segunda Divisão Série D, and though injuries limited him to just two league appearances, he managed to feature in the play-offs as the club secured promotion into the

Liga de Honra The Liga Portugal 2 (), also known as Liga Portugal 2 SABSEG for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division of the Portuguese football league system. At the end of each season, the two top-finishing teams are promoted to the top-tier Prim ...

(second tier). He returned to the club for the 2006–07 campaign, and scored four goals in 26 games as they were relegated in 15th place. He returned to the Liga de Honra for the 2007–08 campaign on loan at newly promoted Fátima, who were coached by

Rui Vitória Rui Carlos Pinho da Vitória (; born 16 April 1970) is a Portuguese football manager and a former player who played as a midfielder. He is the manager of the Egypt national football team. He most notably spent three and a half years with Benf ...

. He scored 11 goals in 32 league and cup appearances despite Fátima sufferering relegation in last place. Despite their league form, Fátima did manage to pull off one of the biggest shock victories of their history by eliminating

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

out of the

Taça da Liga The Taça da Liga (), known outside Portugal as Portuguese League Cup, is an annual football club competition organised by the Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional (LPFP) for teams competing in the Primeira Liga and LigaPro, the top two tier ...

on penalties. He was later voted as the second best player of the tournament, behind Cláudio Pitbull, having scored against Santa Clara, converted in the shoot-out against Porto, and scored in the club's fourth round defeat to his parent club Sporting CP. He signed a new four-year contract with Sporting CP in April 2008. He stated that he aimed to win a first team place and was "tired of loans". He was given

(first tier) experience for the 2008–09 season after securing a loan move to

Vitória de Setúbal Vitoria or Vitória may refer to : People * Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1483–1546), a Spanish Renaissance theologian * Alberto Vitoria (1956–2010), Spanish footballer * Rui Vitória (born 1970), Portuguese retired footballer * Steven Vitória (b ...

. However, he featured just five times in the league under coach Daúto Faquirá, leading Saleiro to complain to the press about his lack of first team opportunities. He spent the second half of the campaign on loan at Académica, and finished the season as the club's joint-second highest scorer (tied with

Modou Sougou Pape Amodou "Modou" Sougou (born 18 December 1984) is a Senegalese former professional footballer who played as a right winger. Club career Early years and Portugal Born in the village of Fissel, in the M'bour Department, Sougou started his ca ...

) with four goals in 13 games to help the club secure a seventh-place finish in the Primeira Liga. Saleiro made his first team debut for the "Lions" under

Paulo Bento Paulo Jorge Gomes Bento (; born 20 June 1969) is a Portuguese football manager and former player. A defensive midfielder with tackling ability and workrate as his main assets, he played for two of the major three teams in his country, amassin ...

on 26 August 2009, playing 30 minutes in a 1–1 draw with

Fiorentina ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as Fiorentina (), is an Italian professional football club based in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. The original team was founded by a merger in August 1926, while the actual club was refounded in August 2002 fo ...

at the

Stadio Artemio Franchi The Stadio Artemio Franchi is a football stadium in Florence, Italy. It is currently the home of ACF Fiorentina. The old nickname of the stadium was "Comunale." When it was first constructed, it was known as the ''Stadio Giovanni Berta'', after ...

for the last qualifying round of the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

. Four days later he made his league debut for the club, in a 1–0 win at former side Académica. He made a total of 28 appearances in the 2009–10 season, scoring five goals, mostly under the stewardship of new head coach

Carlos Carvalhal Carlos Augusto Soares da Costa Faria Carvalhal (; born 4 December 1965) is a Portuguese former footballer who played as a centre-back, currently manager of La Liga club RC Celta de Vigo. As a player, he totalled 197 Primeira Liga appearances in ...

. He made 39 appearances in the

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

season, scoring two goals, as Sporting CP finished in third place, some distance behind ' Big Three' rivals Porto and Benfica. However, much to his frustration, he was frequently used a late substitute by coach Paulo Sérgio and so had limited game time at the

Estádio José Alvalade Estádio José Alvalade is a football stadium in Lisbon, Portugal, home of Sporting Clube de Portugal. It was built adjacent to the site of the older stadium. The stadium is named after José Alvalade (1885–1918), the founder and first club mem ...

. He chose to leave Sporting CP a year before the end of his contract to search for first team football elsewhere, despite reports that new head coach

Domingos Paciência Domingos José Paciência Oliveira, known simply as Domingos as a player (; born 2 January 1969), is a Portuguese former footballer who played as a striker, currently a manager. He achieved success with both Porto and the Portugal national te ...

's rated him highly.

Servette to Oriental

Saleiro signed a two-year contract with

in July 2011, who were managed by Portuguese head coach João Alves and director of football

Costinha Francisco José Rodrigues da Costa (born 1 December 1974), known as Costinha (), is a Portuguese former professional footballer who played as a defensive midfielder, currently a manager. Best known for his tackling and positioning, as well as ...

. He hoped the move would allow him a chance to win himself a place in the

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

squad for

UEFA Euro 2012 The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2012 or simply Euro 2012, was the 14th European Championship for men's national football teams organised by UEFA. The final tournament, held between 8 June and 1 ...

. However, he struggled with injuries and played only seven

matches in the 2011–12 season. He signed with

Pedro Emanuel Pedro Emanuel dos Santos Martins Silva (born 11 February 1975), known as Pedro Emanuel, is a Portuguese retired footballer who played mainly as a central defender, currently manager of Saudi Arabian club Khaleej FC. In his 16-year professional c ...

's Académica in June 2012. He missed pre-season with an Achilles tendon injury however, and after returning to fitness in November featured in just seven Primeira Liga and five cup games. He was without a club for the 2013–14 season. He signed with Segunda Liga club

Clube Oriental de Lisboa Clube Oriental de Lisboa is a Portuguese football club based in Lisbon. Founded in 1946, it currently competes in the Campeonato de Portugal, holding home games at ''Campo Engenheiro Carlos Salema'', with an 8,500 capacity. History Clube Orienta ...

in July 2014. He finished the 2014–15 season with five goals in 20 appearances and signed a one-year contract extension in June 2015. The 2015–16 season proved to be disastrous however, as Oriental were relegated and serious but unproven allegations were made of match fixing against some of the players – though Saleiro himself was not implicated.

Port Vale

Saleiro signed a two-year contract with English

League One The English Football League One (often referred to as League One for short or Sky Bet League One for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League One from 2004 until 2016) is the second-highest division of the English Football Leag ...

club

, managed by Portuguese coach

Bruno Ribeiro Bruno Miguel Fernandes Ribeiro (born 22 October 1975) is a Portuguese football manager and former player who is now the head coach at Campeonato de Portugal club Moura. A midfielder with a powerful left-foot strike, he began his playing ca ...

, in July 2016. He made his debut for the "Valiants" on 9 August, coming on as a 73rd-minute substitute for Chris Mbamba in a 2–1 defeat to

Carlisle United Carlisle United Football Club ( , ) is a professional association football club based in Carlisle, Cumbria, England. The team compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. They have played their home games at Brunton Par ...

in the

EFL Cup The EFL Cup (referred to historically, and colloquially, as the League Cup), currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition and major trophy in men's domestic football in England. Organised by the ...

. However his contract was terminated by mutual consent on 16 August 2016, with a club statement revealing that he "found it difficult to adjust to life in the country".

International career

Saleiro represented

at the

2003 UEFA European Under-17 Championship The 2003 UEFA European Under-17 Championship was the second edition of UEFA's UEFA European Under-17 Championship. Portugal hosted the championship, during 7–17 May. The format of the competition changed, and only 8 teams entered the competition ...

. He scored against

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in the semi-finals, a 2–2 draw at the

Estádio do Fontelo Estádio do Fontelo (; Fontelo Stadium) is a stadium in Viseu, Portugal. It was completed and opened to the public in December 1928. It is mostly used for football matches and hosts the home matches of Académico de Viseu. History In 2003 the st ...

; he went on convert his penalty in the shoot-out to help Portugal progress into the final. He also played in the final, where two goals from Márcio Sousa gave Portugal a 2–1 win over

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

to win his country a fifth

title. He also travelled to

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

for the

2003 FIFA U-17 World Championship The 2003 FIFA U-17 World Championship, was the tenth edition of FIFA U-17 World Championship. It was held in the cities of Helsinki, Tampere, Lahti and Turku in Finland between 13 and 30 August 2003. Players born after 1 January 1986 could particip ...

, where Spain exacted their revenge by eliminating Portugal at the quarter-final stage. In total he scored seven goals in 18 under-17 games, and then won two caps at under-18 level in 2004. The following year he scored one goal in eight appearances for the under-19 team. He travelled with the Portugal under-20

squad In military terminology, a squad is among the smallest of military organizations and is led by a non-commissioned officer. NATO and US doctrine define a squad as an organization "larger than a team, but smaller than a section." while US Army do ...

for the

2007 Toulon Tournament The 2007 Toulon Tournament was the 35th edition of the Toulon Tournament, and was held from 31 May to 9 June. It was won by France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also ...

, and featured in three games. He was called up to the Portugal under-21 team and appeared in

qualification Qualification is either the process of qualifying for an achievement, or a credential attesting to that achievement, and may refer to: * Professional qualification, attributes developed by obtaining academic degrees or through professional exper ...

games for the

2009 UEFA European Under-21 Championship The 2009 UEFA European Under-21 Championship began on 15 June 2009, and was the 17th UEFA European Under-21 Championship. This was the first tournament after the competition reverted to a two-year format, following the single-year 2006–07 compe ...

, scoring in a 2–0 win over

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

at the Estádio D. Afonso Henriques on 26 March 2008. He was called up to the Portugal under-23 squad for the 2009–11 International Challenge Trophy, and played in the final where Portugal defeated

1–0 at

Sixfields Stadium Sixfields Stadium is a 7,798-capacity all-seater sports stadium in the Sixfields area on the west side of Northampton, England. It has been the home ground of Northampton Town Football Club following their move from the County Ground in Octo ...

Club statistics

Honours

;Olivais e Moscavide *

: 2005–06 ;Portugal U17 *

;Portugal U23 *

: 2009–11

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saleiro, Carlos 1986 births Living people In vitro fertilisation Footballers from Lisbon Portuguese footballers Portugal youth international footballers Portugal under-21 international footballers Association football forwards Sporting CP B players Sporting CP footballers C.D. Olivais e Moscavide players C.D. Fátima players Vitória F.C. players Associação Académica de Coimbra – O.A.F. players Clube Oriental de Lisboa players Portuguese expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Switzerland Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland Servette FC players Expatriate footballers in England Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in England Port Vale F.C. players Segunda Divisão players Liga Portugal 2 players Primeira Liga players Swiss Super League players