David de Senna Fernandes Sualehe (born 23 March 1997) is a Portuguese 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 plays as a left-back for Slovenian club Olimpija Ljubljana.

Career

Born in Porto and of Mozambican descent, Sualehe was on the books of several clubs as a youth, including Sporting CP and

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 ...

in Lisbon, and

FC Porto Futebol Clube do Porto, MHIH, OM (), commonly known as FC Porto or simply Porto, is a Portuguese professional sports club based in Porto. It is best known for the professional football team playing in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portu ...

and Boavista in his hometown. He took part with Porto under-19 in the UEFA Youth League in 2015–16. In July 2016, Sualehe ended his three-year spell at Porto by signing a five-year contract at Sporting with a

release clause A buyout clause or release clause refers to a clause in a contract that imposes an obligation on another organisation wishing to acquire the services of the employee under contract to pay the (usually substantial) fee of the clause to the organisati ...

of €45 million. On 6 August, he made his professional debut with

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 a

2016–17 LigaPro The 2016–17 LigaPro (also known as Ledman LigaPro for sponsorship reasons) was the 27th season of Portuguese football's second-tier league, and the third season under the current LigaPro title. A total of 22 teams competed in this division, inc ...

match against

Portimonense Portimonense Sporting Clube is a Portuguese sports club based in Portimão. Founded on 14 August 1914, it is most notable for its professional football team, which currently plays in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese football. It als ...

, playing the first 73 minutes of a 2–1 home loss before being

substituted A substitution reaction (also known as single displacement reaction or single substitution reaction) is a chemical reaction during which one functional group in a chemical compound is replaced by another functional group. Substitution reactions ar ...

for Bubacar Djaló. On 30 August 2018, Sualehe signed a three-year deal at Vitória de Guimarães, being again assigned to the reserve team in the second tier. A year later, after relegation, he was loaned to

Farense Sporting Clube Farense, simply known as Farense, is a Portuguese professional association football, football club based in Faro, Portugal, Faro in the Faro District, district of the same name and the region of Algarve. Founded in 1910, the club wi ...

in the same league. Sualehe moved 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, ...

club

Paços de Ferreira Paços de Ferreira () is a city in the Porto District, in the north of Portugal. The population of the city in 2011 was 7491, while its municipality had 56,340 inhabitants, in an area of 70.99 km². Sometimes referred to as the ''Capital do ...

on 1 September 2020, having contributed to Farense's promotion to the top flight. Nearly exactly a year later, having not played any games for the ''Castores'', he was loaned to second-tier Académica de Coimbra. On 12 July 2022, Sualehe left Portugal for the first time in his career, signing a two-year deal with the option of a third at Olimpija Ljubljana in the Slovenian PrvaLiga. He played 30 times in his first season, scoring once on 16 April 2023 to open a 2–0 home win over

Maribor Maribor ( , , , ; also known by other #Name, historical names) is the second-largest city in Slovenia and the largest city of the traditional region of Styria (Slovenia), Lower Styria. It is also the seat of the City Municipality of Maribor, th ...

in the Eternal derby and win the title with five games remaining; the 20-metre strike was his first goal in 123 senior league appearances in his career. With a 2–1

extra time Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played onl ...

win over the same opponents in the

cup final The FA Cup Final, commonly referred to in England as just the Cup Final, is the last match in the FA Cup, Football Association Challenge Cup. It has regularly been one of the List of sports attendance figures, most attended domestic football ev ...

, the team secured a

double A double is a look-alike or doppelgänger; one person or being that resembles another. Double, The Double or Dubble may also refer to: Film and television * Double (filmmaking), someone who substitutes for the credited actor of a character * Th ...

Personal life

In January 2022, Sualehe's €100,000 Mercedes-Benz E-Class was stolen in Coimbra. It was found by the National Republican Guard in

Vila das Aves Aves is an industrial town and civil parish (freguesia) in northern Portugal. The population in 2011 was 8,458, in an area of 6.16 km².

, abandoned.

Honours

Olimpija Ljubljana * Slovenian PrvaLiga:

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

* Slovenian Football Cup:

References

External links

* *
Stats and profile at LPFP

National team data
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sualehe, David 1997 births Living people Portuguese people of Mozambican descent Footballers from Porto Portuguese men's footballers Black Portuguese sportspeople Men's association football fullbacks Portugal men's youth international footballers FC Porto B players Sporting CP B players Vitória S.C. B players S.C. Farense players F.C. Paços de Ferreira players Académica de Coimbra (football) players NK Olimpija Ljubljana (2005) players Liga Portugal 2 players Slovenian PrvaLiga players Portuguese expatriate men's footballers Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Slovenia Expatriate men's footballers in Slovenia