Diego Eli Moreira (; born 4 September 1988) is a 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 currently plays as a

defensive 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 ...

for

Hong Kong Premier League The Hong Kong Premier League () is a Hong Kong professional football league organised by the Hong Kong Football Association. It is currently sponsored by BOC Life and officially known as BOC Life Hong Kong Premier League (). The inaugural seaso ...

club Lee Man. Born in Brazil, he plays for the Hong Kong national team.

Club career

After playing for a number of clubs in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, Diego signed for

Tuen Mun Tuen Mun or Castle Peak is an area near the mouth of Tuen Mun River and Castle Peak Bay in the New Territories, Hong Kong. It was one of the earliest settlements in what is now Hong Kong and can be dated to the Neolithic period. In the more re ...

Hong Kong First Division The Hong Kong First Division League () is the second-highest division in the Hong Kong football league system. Established in 1908, it is the third oldest in Asia. The league was formerly the highest division in Hong Kong until the formation o ...

in 2012. In the following season, he signed with fellow Hong Kong First Division club

Eastern Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...

on a free transfer. On 1 June 2021, after staying at Eastern for 8 years, Diego signed for Lee Man.

International career

On 22 December 2019, after staying in Hong Kong for seven years, Diego confirmed that he had received his

HKSAR passport The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passport is a passport issued only to permanent residents of Hong Kong who also hold Chinese citizenship. Note that: The passport is referred to both as the HKSAR Passport and the Hong Kong Specia ...

, making him eligible to represent

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

internationally. On 17 May 2021, Diego received his first call-up alongside 2 teammates from

to the Hong Kong national football team to play against

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

and

Bahrain Bahrain ( ; ; ar, البحرين, al-Bahrayn, locally ), officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, ' is an island country in Western Asia. It is situated on the Persian Gulf, and comprises a small archipelago made up of 50 natural islands and an ...

for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers. On 3 June 2021, Diego made his international debut for

against

Career statistics

Club

''As of 22 May 2021''

International

Honours

Eastern *

: 2015–16 *

Hong Kong Senior Shield The Hong Kong Senior Challenge Shield (), known commonly as the Senior Shield, is the football knockout inter-club competition held in Hong Kong and the fourth oldest football tournament in Asia. Traditionally, only the teams in the Hong Kong Pr ...

: 2014–15, 2015–16, 2019–20 *

Hong Kong FA Cup Hong Kong FA Cup () is a knockout cup competition in Hong Kong football, run by and named after The Hong Kong Football Association. The first edition of the competition was held in 1975, before then the cup was known as the Golden Jubilee Cup. Th ...

: 2013-14, 2019–20 *

Hong Kong Sapling Cup Hong Kong Football Association Sapling Cup (), more commonly known as Sapling Cup (), is a Hong Kong domestic football competition contested by all the teams in the Hong Kong Premier League. The objective of the Cup is to provide more playing opp ...

2020–21 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 ...

References

External links

*
Diego Eli – Volante – Melhores MomentosEurosport profileDiego Eli
at HKFA
Eastern Sports Club profile

Diego Eli – China 2013/2014
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eli, Diego 1988 births Living people Men's association football forwards Hong Kong men's footballers Hong Kong men's international footballers Brazilian men's footballers Brazilian emigrants to Hong Kong Naturalised footballers of Hong Kong Tuen Mun SA players Eastern Sports Club footballers Lee Man FC players Hong Kong First Division League players Hong Kong Premier League players Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Hong Kong Brazilian expatriates in Hong Kong Brazilian expatriate men's footballers Footballers from Paraná (state)