Célio Taveira Filho (16 October 1940 – 29 May 2020) was a 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

striker Striker or The Strikers may refer to: People *A participant in a strike action *A participant in a hunger strike *Blacksmith's striker, a type of blacksmith's assistant *Striker's Independent Society, the oldest mystic krewe in America People wi ...

Club career

Born in Santos, Taveira played for

Portuguesa Santista Portuguesa is a Portuguese, Catalan, and Spanish feminine adjective meaning "Portuguese". It may also refer to: Places *Portuguesa (state), one of the 23 states of Venezuela * Portuguesa (Rio de Janeiro), a neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ...

, Ponte Preta, Jabaquara,

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 ...

Nacional Nacional, the Portuguese and Spanish word for "national", may refer to: Airlines * Nacional Transportes Aéreos, a Brazilian airline defunct in 2002 * Transportes Aéreos Nacional, a Brazilian airline defunct in 1961 Bank * Banco Nacional, a ...

Corinthians The First Epistle to the Corinthians ( grc, Α΄ ᾽Επιστολὴ πρὸς Κορινθίους) is one of the Pauline epistles, part of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle and a co-aut ...

and Operário. He scored 100 goals for Vasco, being the club's 16th top goalscorer. For Nacional he scored 22 goals in the

Copa Libertadores The CONMEBOL Libertadores, also known as the Copa Libertadores de América ( pt, Copa Libertadores da América), is an annual international club football competition organized by CONMEBOL since 1960. It is the highest level of competition in S ...

, being the 3rd highest Brazilian goalscorer in the competition. He retired at the age of 32 after injuring his collarbone in a collision with Rivellino in training.

International career

He earned 3 caps for the Brazil national team. He was the last player to be cut from the Brazil squad for the

1966 FIFA World Cup The 1966 FIFA World Cup was the eighth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in England from 11 July to 30 July 1966. The England national football team defeated West Germany 4-2 in the ...

Later life and death

From the late 1970s he lived in

João Pessoa, Paraíba João Pessoa (), a port city in northeastern Brazil, is the state of Paraíba's capital and largest city, with an estimated population of 817,511 (as of 2020). It is located on the right bank of the Paraíba do Norte river. The new "Estação ...

, where he worked as a businessman (running a fruit export business) and radio sports commentator. He died in hospital in João Pessoa on 29 May 2020, aged 79, from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, during the

COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil The COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil has resulted in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths. The virus was confirmed to have spread to Brazil on 25 February 2020, when a man from São Paulo who had traveled to Italy tested positive for the virus. ...

. At the time of his death Taveira had four children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

References

1940 births 2020 deaths Brazilian men's footballers Associação Atlética Portuguesa (Santos) players Associação Atlética Ponte Preta players Jabaquara Atlético Clube players CR Vasco da Gama players Club Nacional de Football players Sport Club Corinthians Paulista players Operário Futebol Clube (MS) players Men's association football forwards Brazilian expatriate men's footballers Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Uruguay Expatriate men's footballers in Uruguay Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Paraíba Brazil men's international footballers Footballers from Santos, São Paulo {{Brazil-footy-bio-stub