Júlio Cernadas Pereira (13 January 1929 – 11 October 2007), commonly known as Juca, was a Portuguese

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

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 ...

and coach. Most of his career was associated with Sporting CP, as both player and manager.

Playing career

The son of Portuguese parents who had settled in

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

, Juca was born in Lourenço Marques, and started playing professionally with local Sporting de Lourenço Marques as a

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

. In 1949 he went to Portugal and joined Sporting CP, where he remained for nine years until his retirement at the age of 29 due to a knee injury, helping them win five

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, ...

championships and the 1954

domestic cup A domestic cup (also known as association cup or national cup) is a type of sports tournament, particularly common in association football. This tournament type is notable for its participation by professional and amateur teams from many levels of ...

. During nearly four years, Juca earned six caps 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 ...

. His first game was a 1–1 draw with

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on 23 November 1952 in a

friendly match An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, a scrimmage, a demonstration, a preseason game, a warmup match, or a preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sporting event whose prize money and impact on the player's or ...

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 his last appearance was in another exhibition game, against

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(9 June 1956 in

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 ...

, same result).

Coaching career

Shortly after retiring in 1960, Juca started managing, his first job being with main club Sporting's under-19. He was promoted to head coach of the first team the following year, being in charge for three-and-a-half of the following five years and winning the

1962 Events January * January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand. * January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism. * January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wors ...

and 1966 leagues (he was only in charge for four matches in the latter campaign however) as well as the 1963 Portuguese Cup. After spending the following years with three clubs, mainly Académica de Coimbra, and some periods of inactivity, Juca returned to Sporting for 1975–76, being fired after the team could only rank in fifth position, 12 points behind champions S.L. Benfica. In his second spell with the

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto Metropolitan Area, Porto, and Bra ...

side, Juca accumulated and worked for the first time as coach of the Portuguese national team – in 1968 he had already worked in Otto Glória's staff– winning three games during the

1978 FIFA World Cup The 1978 FIFA World Cup was the 11th edition of the FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial international football world championship tournament among the men's senior national teams. It was held in Argentina between 1 and 25 June. The Cup was won by t ...

qualifiers and finishing second to

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in its group, but faring worse in the 1982 edition (fourth position);Portuguese national team coaches
at

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both campaigns ended in failure to reach the final stages. Juca was again in charge of the national team for the 1990 World Cup qualification, missing it by just two points in the favour of

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

. After being dismissed he returned to Sporting, working until 2004 as director of football and youth coordinator. He died at the age of 78.

Honours

Player

: 1950–51, 1951–52, 1952–53, 1953–54, 1957–58 * Taça de Portugal: 1953–54

Manager

: 1961–62, 1965–66 * Taça de Portugal: 1962–63

References

External links

* *
Portugal stats at Eu-Football
{{DEFAULTSORT:Juca 1929 births 2007 deaths Sportspeople from Maputo Portuguese footballers Association football midfielders Primeira Liga players Sporting CP footballers Portugal international footballers Portuguese football managers Primeira Liga managers Sporting CP managers Vitória S.C. managers Associação Académica de Coimbra – O.A.F. managers C.F. Os Belenenses managers S.C. Braga managers Portugal national football team managers