Luís Miguel Lopes Mendes (born 9 April 1987), known as Mano, 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 mainly as a

right-back 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 ...

Club career

A product of

C.F. Os 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 Rest ...

' youth system,

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 ...

-born Mano first appeared with the first team on 4 February 2007 in a 1–0 away win against

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 ...

. He had to wait until the 2008–09 season to become an important member of the main squad. Mano featured in 28 games in the 2009–10 campaign but Belenenses finished as second-bottom in the

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, ...

, dropping down to the Segunda Liga. In August 2010 he moved to

Villarreal CF B Villarreal Club de Fútbol "B" is a Spanish football team based in Villarreal, in the autonomous community of Valencia. Founded in 1999, it is the reserve team of Villarreal CF and plays in Segunda División, holding home games at ''Ciudad Deporti ...

in Spain, playing 31

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commercially known as LaLiga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. Administrated by the Lig ...

matches in his

first year A freshman, fresher, first year, or frosh, is a person in the first year at an educational institution, usually a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational institutions. Ara ...

(27 starts) as the

Valencians Valencians ( va, valencians) are the native people of the Valencian Community, in eastern Spain. Legally, Valencians are the inhabitants of the community. Since 2006, the Valencian people are officially recognised in the Valencian Statute of Aut ...

retained their league status; his debut in the latter competition took place later that month, when he came on as a late substitute in the 3–0 away loss to

Real Valladolid Real Valladolid Club de Fútbol, S.A.D., or simply Real Valladolid () or Valladolid, is a professional football club based in Valladolid, Castile and León, Spain that competes in La Liga, the top tier of the Spanish league system. The club colo ...

. On 5 June 2012, following a brief spell in the

Super League Greece The Super League Greece 1 ( el, Ελληνική Σούπερ Λιγκ 1), or Super League 1, is the highest professional association football league in Greece. The league was formed on 16 July 2006 and replaced ''Alpha Ethniki'' at the top of ...

with

Levadiakos FC Levadiakos Football Club ( el, ΠΑΕ Λεβαδειακός) is a Greek professional football club that plays in the Super League Greece. Based in Livadeia, Greece, the club was promoted to the Alpha Ethniki, forerunner of the Super League, af ...

, Mano returned to Portugal and signed a two-year contract with

G.D. Estoril Praia Grupo Desportivo Estoril Praia (), commonly known as Estoril, is a Portuguese sports club from Estoril, Cascais, Lisbon. Founded on 17 May 1939, its football team currently plays in Primeira Liga and hold home games at the Estádio António Coimb ...

. He appeared in 27 games in his second season, helping to a best ever fourth-place finish and qualification for the

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 ...

. Mano joined Vitória Setúbal in June 2018, on a two-year deal.

International career

Born in Portugal of

Cape Verde , national_anthem = () , official_languages = Portuguese , national_languages = Cape Verdean Creole , capital = Praia , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , demonym ...

an descent, Mano represented

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 ...

at the

2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup The 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the 16th edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup (formerly called the FIFA World Youth Championship), hosted by Canada from 30 June to 22 July 2007. Argentina defeated the Czech Republic in the title game by the score ...

, also appearing in other minor tournaments. In the competition held in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, in the round-of-16 defeat against

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

(1–0), he was going to be sent off by

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

Subkhiddin Mohd Salleh for a foul when teammate

Zequinha José Ferreira Franco (18 November 1934 in Recife – 25 July 2009), nicknamed ''Zequinha'', was a Brazilian association football player. Playing career National team He earned 16 caps and scored 2 goals for the Brazil national football ...

stripped the judge of his red card, receiving his marching orders as well; subsequently, both players were suspended from international football, Mano for three months. Mano won the first of two caps for the under-21 side on 23 March 2007, featuring the second half of a 2–0

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 * ...

victory over

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

.Sub-21: Portugal-Eslováquia, 2–0 (crónica) (Under-21: Portugal-Slovakia, 2–0 (match report))
Mais Futebol, 23 March 2007 (in Portuguese)

References

External links

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mano 1987 births Living people Portuguese sportspeople of Cape Verdean descent Black Portuguese sportspeople Portuguese footballers Footballers from Lisbon Association football defenders Primeira Liga players Campeonato de Portugal (league) players C.F. Os Belenenses players G.D. Estoril Praia players Vitória F.C. players Segunda División players Villarreal CF B players Super League Greece players Levadiakos F.C. players Portugal youth international footballers Portugal under-21 international footballers Portuguese expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Spain Expatriate footballers in Greece Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Spain Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Greece