Rui de Gouveia Pinto Rodrigues (born 17 May 1943) is a Portuguese retired

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 ...

player and manager. He played as 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 ...

. Over the course of 17 seasons, Rodrigues amassed Portuguese top division totals of 338 games and 21 goals, representing Académica de Coimbra (two spells),

S.L. Benfica Sport Lisboa e Benfica (), commonly known as Benfica, is a professional association football, football club based in Lisbon, Portugal, that competes in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese football league system, Portuguese footba ...

and

Vitória de Guimarães 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 ...

Club career

Born in

Lourenço Marques Maputo (), formerly named Lourenço Marques until 1976, is the capital, and largest city of Mozambique. Located near the southern end of the country, it is within of the borders with Eswatini and South Africa. The city has a population of 1,088 ...

Portuguese Mozambique Portuguese Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique) or Portuguese East Africa (''África Oriental Portuguesa'') were the common terms by which Mozambique was designated during the period in which it was a Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colony. Portuguese Moz ...

, Rodrigues started at Grupo Desportivo 1º de Maio, after an unsuccessful try-out at Ferroviário de Lourenço Marques. In 1962, he travelled to Portugal for a training session with the under-18 national team. Only a few months later, at the start of 1962–63 season, he joined Académica de Coimbra. First with

José Maria Pedroto José Maria Carvalho Pedroto, OIH (21 October 1928 – 7 January 1985), was a Portuguese football midfielder and manager. He amassed Primeira Liga totals of 227 matches and 57 goals over 11 seasons, at the service of Lusitano, Belenenses and Po ...

and then with

Mário Wilson Mário Wilson (; 17 October 1929 – 3 October 2016) was a Portuguese football central defender and manager. He appeared in 286 Primeira Liga matches over 14 seasons, mainly in representation of Académica. He also played for Desportivo de Lou ...

, Rodrigues spent 9 seasons in Coimbra, helping them reach a fourth place in 1964–65 and a club record second place in 1964–67, plus reaching two

Portuguese Cup Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

finals, in

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 5 ** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...

and

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

. In 1971, after years of refusing offers from larger clubs, he accepted a move to Benfica. He made his debut on 12 September 1971, in a home win to

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 played a total of 25 matches throughout the season, winning a league and cup double, and reached the semi-final of the

European Cup 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 ...

. During his spell at Benfica, he suffered minor injuries that hinder his progress in the team and with competition from Messias and others, the 31-year old chose to leave Benfica in 1974. He then joined

for two seasons, playing all of the league games in 1974–75 and receiving the captain

armband An armband is a piece of material worn around the arm. They may be worn for pure ornamentation, or to mark the wearer as belonging to group, or as insignia having a certain rank, status, office or role, or being in a particular state or conditi ...

in the following year, which ended with another

final lost. Rodrigues returned to Académica in 1976, playing only 33 league appearances over three years, five of those in 1978–79 and with the team suffering relegation, the 36-year-old retired from football. In the following four years, he managed several teams, notably Leça and

Beira-Mar Sport Clube Beira-Mar () is a Portuguese sports club based in Aveiro, Portugal. Its football team currently plays in the Campeonato de Portugal, the fourth national level, having gained promotion by winning the Aveiro FA First Division 2018/19 ...

(twice), returning to Benfica in 1995 on invitation of Artur Jorge to coach the under-12, winning the Campeonato Nacional de Infantis.

International career

Rodrigues gained 12

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

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 ...

, nine as an Académica player. He made his debut on 26 November 1967 against

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

, in a 0–1 loss in

Sofia Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...

for the

UEFA Euro 1968 The 1968 UEFA European Football Championship final tournament was held in Italy. This was the third UEFA European Championship, an event held every four years and organised by UEFA. The final tournament took place between 5 and 10 June 1968. It ...

qualifiers. Rodrigues' last appearance was on 16 October 1976 against

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

, in a 0–2 home defeat for 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 ...

qualification campaign.

Honours

;Académica *

Taça de Portugal The Taça de Portugal (; "Cup of Portugal") is an annual association football competition and the premier knockout tournament in Portuguese football. For sponsorship reasons, it has been known as Taça de Portugal Placard since the 2015–16 seaso ...

: Runner-up 1966–67, 1968–68 ;Benfica *

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, ...

: 1971–72, 1972–73 *

: 1971–72 ;Vitória de Guimarães *

: Runner-up 1975–76

References

General * Specific

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rodrigues, Rui 1943 births Living people Footballers from Maputo Portuguese men's footballers Men's association football defenders Primeira Liga players Académica de Coimbra (football) players S.L. Benfica footballers Vitória S.C. players Portugal men's international footballers Portuguese football managers S.C. Beira-Mar managers