Matilde Mota Veiga Santiago Fidalgo (born 15 May 1994) 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

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 ...

or a

centre-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 ...

for Spanish

Liga F The Primera División de la Liga de Fútbol Femenino, currently known as Liga F (finetwork Liga F for sponsorship reasons), is the highest level of league competition for women's football in Spain. It is the women's equivalent of the men's La Lig ...

club

Real Betis Real Betis Balompié, known as Real Betis () or just Betis, is a Spanish professional football club based in Seville in the autonomous community of Andalusia. Founded in 1907, it plays in La Liga. It holds home games at the Estadio Benito Vill ...

and the Portugal women's national team. Fidalgo made her senior debut for Portugal in September 2013 and represented her country at

UEFA Women's Euro 2017 The 2017 UEFA European Women's Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Women's Euro 2017, was the 12th edition of the UEFA Women's Championship, the quadrennial international football championship organised by UEFA for the women's national team ...

Career

Club

Fidalgo was born in

São Domingos de Benfica São Domingos de Benfica () is a ''freguesia'' (civil parish) and district of Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Located in northern Lisbon, São Domingos de Benfica is east of Benfica, south of Carnide, west of Alvalade, and north of Campolide. Th ...

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 ...

and from a young age has played

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 ...

. In 2009, Fidalgo started her career at CF Benfica in the Portuguese League. She played for the Lisbon club until June 2017 when she moved to

Sporting CP Sporting Clube de Portugal, founded Sporting Club de Portugal (), otherwise referred to as Sporting CP, often known abroad as Sporting Lisbon , is a Portuguese professional sports club based in Lisbon. It is best known for the professional foot ...

. With Benfica, Fidalgo won one national title in the 2015/2016 season and was elected "Best Player" for the 2015/2016 season by the "Sindicato dos Jogadores Profissionais de Futebol (SJPF)". She also captained the team for several seasons. In March 2018, Fidalgo won the "Quinas de Ouro" award as one of the "11 Best Players in the Women's League". The award is given by the

Portuguese Football Federation The Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) ( pt, Federação Portuguesa de Futebol; ) is the governing body of football in Portugal. The federation was formed in 1914 as Portuguese Football Union (UPF) by the three existing regional associations ...

. In 2018 she moved to the rival team

SC Braga Sporting Clube de Braga () (), commonly known as Sporting de Braga or just Braga, is a Portuguese sports club from the city of Braga. It is best known for the professional football team playing in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese f ...

, with whom she won the Portuguese League title – Braga's first championship win. On 30 May 2019, it was announced that Fidalgo was signed to

Women's Super League The Women's Super League (WSL), currently known as the Barclays Women's Super League (BWSL) for sponsorship reasons, is the highest league of women's football in England. Established in 2010, it is run by the Football Association and features t ...

team

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

. Fidalgo moved to S.L Benfica on 4 August 2020, after only making two league appearances and becoming third-choice behind

Janine Beckie Janine Elizabeth Beckie (born August 20, 1994) is a Canadian soccer player who plays as a forward for National Women's Soccer League club Portland Thorns FC and the Canada national team. She previously played for Sky Blue FC, the Houston Das ...

and even

Georgia Stanway Georgia Marie Stanway (born 3 January 1999) is an English professional Association football, footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for Frauen-Bundesliga club FC Bayern Munich (women), Bayern Munich and the England women's national foot ...

, who was not a natural right-back.

International

On February 22, 2011, Fidalgo debuted for Portugal U19 in a win against Finland U19 for the 2011 UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship Qualifying Round. She also represented Portugal at the qualifying stages of the

2012 UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship The UEFA Women's U-19 Championship 2012 Final Tournament was held in Antalya, Turkey between 2 and 14 July 2012. Players born after 1 January 1993 were eligible to participate in this competition. Tournament structure The regulations make up f ...

and the

2013 UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship The UEFA Women's U-19 Championship 2013 Final Tournament was held in Wales between 19 and 31 August 2013. Players born after 1 January 1994 were eligible to participate in this competition. It was the first time Wales played in the final tourname ...

. On September 26, 2013, Fidalgo debuted for the Portuguese Senior Team in a win against

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

, a

2015 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification The qualification for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup determined which 23 teams joined Canada, the hosts of the 2015 tournament, to play for the Women's World Cup. The field was expanded from 16 teams in the 2011 edition to 24 in the 2015 edit ...

's match. Since then, she represented Portugal in several international competitions including the qualifying stages for the

and the

2019 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup was the eighth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international Women's association football championship contested by 24 women's national teams representing member associations of FIFA. It ...

. On July 6, 2017, Fidalgo was called by coach

Francisco Neto Francisco Miguel Conceição Roque Neto (born 11 July 1981), known as Francisco Neto or simply Neto, is a Portuguese football manager, currently the head coach of the Portugal women's national football team The Portugal women's national footb ...

to represent Portugal at the

, the first time the Portuguese team reached the final stage of a big international tournament. She didn't play in any matches as her team was eliminated while still in the Group Stage.

Personal life

Fidalgo is a

cousin Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, " ...

Bernardo Silva Bernardo Mota Veiga de Carvalho e Silva (; born 10 August 1994), known as Bernardo Silva or simply Bernardo, is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder, forward or a winger for club Manchester City and the P ...

. Both were born in 1994, share the same

great-grandparents Grandparents, individually known as grandmother and grandfather, are the parents of a person's father or mother – paternal or maternal. Every sexually-reproducing living organism who is not a genetic chimera has a maximum of four genetic gra ...

, play internationally for the Portugal national team and once both played their club football at Manchester City.

Honours

CF Benfica * Campeonato Nacional II Divisão: 2009–10 *

Campeonato Nacional Feminino The Campeonato Nacional Feminino (English: Women's National Championship), also known as Liga BPI for sponsorship reasons, is the top-tier women's association football league in Portugal. It is run by the Portuguese Football Federation and began ...

: 2014–15, 2015–16 *

Taça de Portugal Feminina The Taça de Portugal Feminina (english: Women's Cup of Portugal) is an annual association football competition and the premier knockout tournament in Portuguese female football. It was founded in 2003. For sponsorship reasons, it has been known ...

: 2014–15, 2015–16 *

Supertaça de Portugal Feminina The Supertaça de Portugal Feminina ( en, Portuguese Women's Super Cup) is an annual Portuguese football match played since 2015 between the winners of the Portuguese league, Campeonato Nacional Feminino, and the holders of the Portuguese Cup, T ...

: 2015 Sporting CP *

: 2017–18 *

: 2017 SC Braga *

: 2018–19 Manchester City *

Women's FA Cup The Women's FA Challenge Cup Competition is the top annual cup tournament for women's clubs in English football. Founded in 1970, it has been named the WFA Cup, FA Women's Cup and now Women's FA Cup (Vitality Women's FA Cup for sponsorship reas ...

: 2019–20 Benfica *

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 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 ...

: 2019–20, 2020–21

References

External links

* * * *
Matilde Fidalgo
at playmakerstats.com * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fidalgo, Matilde 1994 births Living people Footballers from Lisbon Portugal women's international footballers Portuguese women's footballers Women's association football defenders Campeonato Nacional de Futebol Feminino players Women's Super League players C.F. Benfica (women) footballers Sporting CP (women's football) players S.C. Braga (women) players Manchester City W.F.C. players S.L. Benfica (women) footballers Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in England Expatriate women's footballers in England UEFA Women's Euro 2017 players Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Spain Portuguese expatriate women's footballers Real Betis Féminas players