Cristiano Rocha Canedo Roland (born 4 October 1976), known simply as Cristiano, is a retired Brazilian

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 left-back. He started at Grêmio and moved to

Vasco da Gama Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira (; ; c. 1460s – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea. His initial voyage to India by way of Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499) was the first to link E ...

in 1996, where he won the Brasileirão in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

. In 1998, he signed with Beira-Mar winning a Portuguese Cup in 1999 and transferring to Benfica in 2002, where he won another Portuguese Cup in 2004. In 2007, he moved to the V-League, playing for Hanoi T&T on two different spells, winning three major titles.

Career

Born in

Porto Alegre Porto Alegre (, , Brazilian ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Its population of 1,488,252 inhabitants (2020) makes it the List of largest cities in Brazil, twelfth most populous city in the country ...

, Cristiano started at Grêmio in 1994, and spending two years in their youth system. In 1996, he moved to

and helped them win the Brasileirão in 1997. After a short period back at Grêmio, Cristiano moved abroad and joined

Beira-Mar Sport Clube Beira-Mar () is a Portuguese sports club based in Aveiro, Portugal. Its football team currently plays in the Campeonato de Portugal, the fourth national level, having gained promotion by winning the Aveiro FA First Division 2018/19 ...

in 1998. He was sparsely used in his first year, that ended with mixed results: relegation in the

Primeira Divisão 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, ...

and the conquering the

Portuguese Cup 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 ...

. His influence grew in the following three seasons and he became known as free-kick specialist. In 2001–02, Cristiano scored three league goals, two of them against

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 ...

, and in both times, Beira-Mar won. In June 2002, Benfica signed him on a four-year deal, with Diogo Luís and

Toni Toni, Toñi or Tóni is a unisex given name. In Spanish, Italian, Croatian and Finnish, it is a masculine given name used as a short form of the names derived from Antonius like Antonio, Ante or Anttoni. In Danish, English, Finnish, Norwegia ...

going in the other direction on loan deals. From early on, Cristiano struggled with competition from Ricardo Rocha, and on occasions, Cabral. He only made his debut on 3 November 2002 against Santa Clara, but with the arrival of

José Antonio Camacho José Antonio Camacho Alfaro (; born 8 June 1955) is a Spanish former football left-back and manager. He spent 15 professional years at Real Madrid, appearing in more than 500 official matches with the team and helping win 19 major titles, i ...

, he began playing much more frequently, finishing the season with 14 appearances. The following

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...

, Cristiano was set to reunite with

Jesualdo Ferreira Manuel Jesualdo Ferreira (born 24 May 1946) is a Portuguese football manager. He is currently the manager of Zamalek in the Egyptian Premier League. In a managerial career of over forty years, he was in charge of all of his country's Big Three ...

at Braga, but the loan deal fell through. Still, Cristiano started 8 league games in the first half of the season, until the arrival of Fyssas in January. From then on, he became a bench player and never returned to the starting eleven. In May, he added his second trophy in Portugal, after winning the

2003–04 Taça de Portugal The 2003–04 Taça de Portugal was the 64th edition of the Portuguese football knockout tournament, organized by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF). This edition of the Taça de Portugal began on 7 September 2003, and concluded on 16 May 20 ...

. In July 2004, he was loaned to

Belenenses Clube de Futebol Os Belenenses, commonly known as Os Belenenses (), is a Portuguese sports club best known for its football team. Founded in 1919, it is one of the oldest Portuguese sports clubs. It is based in the 25,000-seat Estádio do Reste ...

for one year. Initially, he was an undisputed starter playing six games in a row, but an injury in late October, cause him to lost his place to Cabral and

José Sousa José Carlos Leite de Sousa (born 9 October 1977) is a Portuguese retired Association football, footballer who played as a Defender (association football)#Full-back, right back, and is a Manager (association football), manager. He amassed Primei ...

. In 2005–06, Cristiano could not find a team and was placed in

Benfica B Sport Lisboa e Benfica "B", commonly known as Benfica B, is a Portuguese professional football team based in Seixal. Founded in 1999, dissolved in 2006, and restarted in 2012, it is the reserve team of Portuguese club S.L. Benfica. They play in ...

, but mutually terminated his contract on late September 2005. After Benfica, he spent some time at Juventude in the Série A, before moving to

Atromitos Atromitos (Greek: Ατρόμητος, "fearless") may refer to: * Atromitos F.C., a football team based in Peristeri, Athens, Greece * Atromitos Piraeus, a football team based in Piraeus, Athens, Greece * Atromitos Yeroskipou, a football team curr ...

in the Greek league. He played for Hanoi T&T in 2007 and returned to Beira-Mar in July 2008, playing 26 games in 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 ...

. In 2009, Cristiano moved back to Hanoi T&T and won the league in

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

and

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

, retiring in 2013. In August 2015, he came out of retirement for a third stint at Beira-Mar, after they were relegated to the Aveiro FA's second division.

Honours

;Vasco da Gama * Brasileirão:

;Beira-Mar * Taça de Portugal: 1998–99 ;Benfica * Taça de Portugal: 2003–04 ;Hanoi T&T * V-League:

Vietnamese Super Cup Vietnamese National Football Super Cup ( vi, Siêu cúp bóng đá Việt Nam), also called the Thaco National Football Super Cup due to sponsorship reasons, is Vietnamese football's annual match contested between the champions of the previous V.L ...

: 2010

References

General * Specific {{DEFAULTSORT:Cristiano 1976 births Living people Footballers from Porto Alegre Brazilian men's footballers CR Vasco da Gama players Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto Alegrense players Esporte Clube Juventude players S.L. Benfica footballers S.L. Benfica B players C.F. Os Belenenses players S.C. Beira-Mar players Atromitos F.C. players Hanoi FC players V.League 2 players V.League 1 players Brazilian expatriate men's footballers Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Vietnam Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Expatriate men's footballers in Vietnam Expatriate men's footballers in Greece Expatriate men's footballers in Portugal Men's association football defenders