António José de Oliveira Meireles (9 April 1951 – 28 December 2021), known as Tibi, was a Portuguese

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 ...

Club career

Born in

Matosinhos Matosinhos, Porto, Portugal () is a city and a municipality in the northern Porto district of Portugal, bordered in the south by the city of Porto (8 km from the city centre). The population in 2011 was 175,478, and covered an area of approx ...

, Porto District, Tibi spent the better part of his 19-year senior career with

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 ...

after signing in 1982 from local club

Leixões SC The Port of Leixões ( pt, Porto de Leixões, ) is one of Portugal's major seaports, located 4 km north of the mouth of the Douro River, in Matosinhos municipality, near the city of Porto. Leixões Sport Club The Port of Leixões ( pt, P ...

. After being first choice for manager

Béla Guttmann Béla Guttmann (; 27 January 1899 – 28 August 1981) was a Hungarian footballer and coach. He was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, and was Jewish. He was deported by the Nazis to a Nazi slave labor camp where he was tortured; he survived the ...

, he was made surplus to requirements by José Maria Pedroto. During his spell at the Estádio das Antas, Tibi appeared in 131 competitive matches, won two Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira and the 1977 Taça de Portugal.

International career

Tibi won two 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 ...

over seven years. His debut was on 13 November 1974, in a 3–0

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 * ...

away loss against

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

Death

On 28 December 2021, Tibi died in his hometown from

degenerative disease Degenerative disease is the result of a continuous process based on degenerative cell changes, affecting tissues or organs, which will increasingly deteriorate over time. In neurodegenerative diseases, cells of the central nervous system stop wor ...

. He was 70 years old.

References

External links

* * * *{{Eu-Football.info, 21045 1951 births 2021 deaths Sportspeople from Matosinhos Portuguese footballers Association football goalkeepers Primeira Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players Leixões S.C. players FC Porto players Varzim S.C. players F.C. Famalicão players S.C. Espinho players F.C. Maia players Portugal under-21 international footballers Portugal B international footballers Portugal international footballers