Paulo Rebelo Costinha Castro (born 22 September 1973), known as Costinha, is a Portuguese former 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 played 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 ...

. He appeared in 229

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, ...

matches in 16 seasons, mainly with

União de Leiria União Desportiva de Leiria, commonly known as União de Leiria (), is a Portuguese football club based in Leiria, central Portugal. Founded on 6 June 1966, it currently plays in the Campeonato de Portugal, holding home matches at Estádio Dr. ...

(six years) and Sporting CP (four).

Club career

Costinha was born in Braga. A product of

Boavista FC Boavista Futebol Clube, commonly known as Boavista (), is a Portuguese sports club from the city of Porto. Founded on 1 August 1903 by British entrepreneurs and Portuguese textile workers (thus the "FC" being appended – the British way as oppos ...

's youth system, he went on to represent

clubs

FC Porto Futebol Clube do Porto, MHIH, OM (), commonly known as FC Porto or simply Porto, is a Portuguese professional sports club based in Porto. It is best known for the professional football team playing in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portu ...

and Sporting CP – being mostly a backup– as well as

U.D. Leiria União Desportiva de Leiria, commonly known as União de Leiria (), is a Portuguese football club based in Leiria, central Portugal. Founded on 6 June 1966, it currently plays in the Campeonato de Portugal, holding home matches at Estádio Dr. M ...

, where he established himself in the top flight. After a short abroad stint with Spain's CD Tenerife, appearing rarely for the

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 ...

team, Costinha joined

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 ...

from Leiria for the 2006–07 season. He only was a starter in his first year as he lost his position after the January 2007 arrival of Brazilian Júlio César, being definitely released in the summer of 2009 without any further league appearances and retiring shortly after, aged 35.

International career

Costinha 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

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

, playing three matches out of six as the national side finished in fourth place. Previously, he appeared in all the games at the

1993 FIFA World Youth Championship The 1993 FIFA World Youth Championship, known as the 1993 FIFA/Coca-Cola World Youth Championship for sponsorship purposes, was the 9th edition FIFA World Youth Championship. U20 Brazil defeated Ghana, 2–1 for its third title. It took place ac ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, with the under-20s losing all three group-stage fixtures (five goals conceded).

Post-retirement

After retiring, Costinha settled in

Leiria Leiria (; cel-x-proto, ɸlāryo) is a city and municipality in the Central Region of Portugal. It is the 2nd largest city in that same region, with a municipality population of 128,640 (as of 2021) in an area of . It is the seat of its own distr ...

were he opened a

tobacco shop A tobacconist, also called a tobacco shop, a tobacconist's shop or a smoke shop, is a retailer of tobacco products in various forms and the related accoutrements, such as pipes, lighters, matches, pipe cleaners, and pipe tampers. More specia ...

. He also worked as a player agent and in a football academy.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Costinha, Paulo 1973 births Living people Footballers from Braga Portuguese men's footballers Men's association football goalkeepers Primeira Liga players Boavista F.C. players Sporting CP footballers FC Porto players U.D. Leiria players C.F. Os Belenenses players Segunda División players CD Tenerife players Portugal men's youth international footballers Portugal men's under-21 international footballers Olympic footballers for Portugal Footballers at the 1996 Summer Olympics Portuguese expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Spain Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Spain