João Mário Naval da Costa Eduardo (born 19 January 1993), known as João Mário (), 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

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

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 Benfica and the Portugal national team. He started out at Sporting CP in whose youth system he developed, being loaned 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 ...

in 2014 and subsequently returning to be an important part of the squads that won major trophies, including the 2015 Taça de Portugal. In 2016 he joined

Inter Milan Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as Internazionale () or simply Inter, and colloquially known as Inter Milan in English-speaking countries, is an Football in Italy, Italian professional Association football, football ...

, having loan spells at West Ham United and Lokomotiv Moscow prior to rejoining Sporting, also on loan, in 2020. João Mário made his senior debut for

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 ...

in 2014. He was named in the squads for

Euro 2016 The 2016 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2016) or simply Euro 2016, was the 15th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe ...

and the

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and 2022 World Cups, winning the 2016 tournament.

Club career

Sporting CP

Following a brief youth spell with local

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 ...

in his hometown, where he was deployed as a

central defender In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

, João Mário moved to Sporting CP in 2004 at the age of 11, going on to complete his development with the

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 ...

club. On 14 December 2011 he was called for a

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...

group stage game away against

Lazio it, Laziale , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

, alongside youth graduates Betinho,

Ricardo Esgaio Ricardo de Sousa Esgaio (; born 16 May 1993) is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays for Sporting CP as a right-back. Club career Sporting CP Born in Nazaré, Leiria District, Esgaio joined Sporting CP's youth system at the age of 12, ...

Tiago Ilori Tiago Abiola Delfim Almeida Ilori (born 26 February 1993) is a Portuguese footballer who plays as a centre-back for F.C. Paços de Ferreira on loan from Sporting CP. He started his career with Sporting, making his debut with the first team in ...

and João Carlos, as the ''Lions'' had already secured the first place in its group: he entered the pitch in the 76th minute of the 2–0 away loss, after replacing

Oguchi Onyewu Oguchialu Chijioke Onyewu (born May 13, 1982) is an American former soccer player who is the secretary-general of R.E. Virton. He was previously the sporting director for Orlando City B. During his professional career, he played as a defender ...

. João Mário's first full season as a senior was

2012–13 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 ...

, as he appeared in 31 games (30 as a starter) for Sporting CP B in the Segunda Liga, with the team finishing in fourth position. On 8 January 2014 he was loaned to

for the remainder of the campaign, starting in all but one

matches he appeared in and being voted the league's best young player for January and February. On 31 May 2015, again with Sporting' main squad, João Mário started in

the final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

of the Taça de Portugal against Braga, but was substituted in the first half due to the dismissal of defender Cédric Soares, in order to bring on Miguel Lopes; Sporting eventually won in a penalty shootout.

Inter Milan

On 27 August 2016, João Mário signed with

for €40 million plus €5 million in bonuses. His maiden appearance in

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

occurred on 11 September when he played the full 90 minutes in a 2–1 victory at

Pescara Pescara (; nap, label= Abruzzese, Pescàrë; nap, label= Pescarese, Piscàrë) is the capital city of the Province of Pescara, in the Abruzzo region of Italy. It is the most populated city in Abruzzo, with 119,217 (2018) residents (and approxim ...

, and his first goal for the team opened a loss by the same score at home to

Cagliari Cagliari (, also , , ; sc, Casteddu ; lat, Caralis) is an Italian municipality and the capital of the island of Sardinia, an autonomous region of Italy. Cagliari's Sardinian name ''Casteddu'' means ''castle''. It has about 155,000 inhabitant ...

on 16 October. Under new manager

Luciano Spalletti Luciano Spalletti (; born 7 March 1959) is an Italian football manager and a former player. He is currently the manager of Italian Serie A club Napoli. Playing career Born in Certaldo, Metropolitan City of Florence, Spalletti started his career ...

, João Mário grew increasingly frustrated about the lack of playing time. On 25 January 2018, he signed on loan for

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

team West Ham United– the contract included a €1.5 million loan fee, and an option for the club to buy the player for a sum in the region of €40 million. He made his debut two days later, replacing Pablo Zabaleta at

half-time In several team sports, matches are played in two halves. Half-time (also written halftime or half time) is the name given to the interval between the two halves of the match. Typically, after half-time, teams swap ends of the field of play in or ...

in a 2–0 away loss to

Wigan Athletic Wigan Athletic Football Club () is an English professional association football club based in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The team competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1932, ...

in the fourth round of the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

. João Mário scored his first goal for West Ham on 31 March 2018, helping the hosts defeat

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

3–0. He made 14 competitive appearances during his half-season spell, scoring twice, and was praised for his work rate. On 27 August 2019, João Mário joined Russian club Lokomotiv Moscow on a

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 ...

-long loan. On 6 October 2020, also on loan, he returned to Sporting. He scored his first goal in his second spell on 27 December, from a

penalty Penalty or The Penalty may refer to: Sports * Penalty (golf) * Penalty (gridiron football) * Penalty (ice hockey) * Penalty (rugby) * Penalty (rugby union) * Penalty kick (association football) * Penalty shoot-out (association football) * Penalty ...

to close a 2–1 away win against

Belenenses SAD B-SAD is a Portuguese football club from Lisbon founded on 30 June 2018 as an independent entity. A rebel offshoot of Clube de Futebol Os Belenenses, they last played in the Primeira Liga, being relegated to Liga Portugal 2 for 2022–23. They ...

. He contributed another until the end of the campaign (from 28 appearances), helping his team to win the league for the first time in 19 years. On 12 July 2021, Inter announced they had reached an agreement to early terminate João Mário's contract by mutual consent.

Benfica

João Mário joined Benfica on 13 July 2021, on a five-year deal. He scored his first competitive goal on 10 August, opening the 2–0 home victory over

Spartak Moscow Spartak Moscow may refer to the following teams based or formerly based in Moscow, Russia: * FC Spartak Moscow, an association football club * HC Spartak Moscow, a professional ice hockey team * Spartak GM Moscow, a semi-professional rugby club * WB ...

in the third 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 ...

. In the following edition of that tournament, João Mário scored four times in the group stage; this included a first-half penalty in a 2–1 away defeat of

Juventus Juventus Football Club (from la, iuventūs, 'youth'; ), colloquially known as Juve (), is a professional Association football, football club based in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, that competes in the Serie A, the top tier of the Italian football leagu ...

on 14 September 2022, and the sixth goal in the 92nd minute of the 6–1 win at Maccabi Haifa on 2 November that qualified his team as group winners on away

goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches ar ...

International career

Of Angolan descent, João Mário earned 82 caps for Portugal at youth level, including 13 for the under-21 team. He made his

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

debut on 11 October 2014, replacing

Cristiano Ronaldo Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro (; born 5 February 1985) is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a forward and captains the Portugal national team. He is currently a free agent. Widely regarded as one of the greatest p ...

for the final 14 minutes of the

friendly Friendly may refer to: Places * Friendly, West Yorkshire, a settlement in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England * Friendly, Maryland, an unincorporated community in the United States * Friendly, Eugene, Oregon, a neighborhood in the United States * ...

against France in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

: soon after coming on, he was fouled by Paul Pogba for a penalty converted by Ricardo Quaresma, in an eventual 2–1 loss. João Mário represented Portugal at the

UEFA European Under-21 Championship The UEFA European Under-21 Championship, the UEFA Under-21 Championship or simply the Euro Under-21, is a biennial football competition contested by the European men's under-21 national teams of the UEFA member associations. Since 1992, the compe ...

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

, netting the only goal of their opening group win over

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 ...

as the tournament ended with a runner-up finish. He was selected by the full side for their

UEFA Euro 2016 The 2016 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2016) or simply Euro 2016, was the 15th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe o ...

campaign, starting in the first match, a 1–1 draw with

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

Saint-Étienne Saint-Étienne (; frp, Sant-Etiève; oc, Sant Estève, ) is a city and the prefecture of the Loire department in eastern-central France, in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Saint-Étienne is the t ...

; he played in all of his team's seven games during Euro 2016, including

against

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

which they won. João Mário scored his first goal for the nation on 10 November 2017, closing the 3–0 friendly defeat of

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

. Subsequently, he was included in the final squad for the

2018 FIFA World Cup The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national Association football, football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awa ...

. In November 2022, João Mário was named in the squad for the

2022 World Cup The 2022 FIFA World Cup is an international football tournament contested by the men's national teams of FIFA's member associations. The 22nd FIFA World Cup is taking place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022; it is the first Wo ...

in Qatar.

Personal life

João Mário's older brother,

Wilson Wilson may refer to: People * Wilson (name) ** List of people with given name Wilson ** List of people with surname Wilson * Wilson (footballer, 1927–1998), Brazilian manager and defender * Wilson (footballer, born 1984), full name Wilson Ro ...

, is also a footballer. He too graduated from Sporting's youth academy.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Portugal's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each João Mário goal.''

Honours

Sporting CP *

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 ...

* Taça de Portugal: 2014–15 *

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 ...

* Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira:

Portugal *

UEFA European Championship The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The competition is contes ...

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

runner-up:

Individual *

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 ...

Team of the Tournament:

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Orders *

Commander of the

Order of Merit The Order of Merit (french: link=no, Ordre du Mérite) is an order of merit for the Commonwealth realms, recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. Established in 1902 by K ...

References

External links

* *
National team data
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Joao Mario 1993 births Living people Portuguese sportspeople of Angolan descent Black Portuguese sportspeople Portuguese footballers Footballers from Porto Association football midfielders Primeira Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players Sporting CP footballers Sporting CP B players Vitória F.C. players S.L. Benfica footballers Serie A players Inter Milan players Premier League players West Ham United F.C. players Russian Premier League players FC Lokomotiv Moscow players Portugal youth international footballers Portugal under-21 international footballers Portugal international footballers UEFA Euro 2016 players 2018 FIFA World Cup players 2022 FIFA World Cup players UEFA European Championship-winning players Portuguese expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Italy Expatriate footballers in England Expatriate footballers in Russia Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Italy Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in England Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Russia Commanders of the Order of Merit (Portugal)