Yuri de Souza Fonseca (born 8 August 1982), known simply as Yuri, is a Brazilian

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 for Spanish club

SD Ponferradina Sociedad Deportiva Ponferradina, S.A.D. is a Spanish football team based in Ponferrada, in the El Bierzo region, in the autonomous community of Castile and León. Founded on 7 June 1922, it plays in Segunda División, holding home matches at the ...

as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

. He also holds

Portuguese citizenship Portuguese nationality law details the conditions by which a person is a national of Portugal. The primary law governing nationality regulations is the Nationality Act, which came into force on 3 October 1981. Portugal is a member state of th ...

, and spent the majority of his professional career in

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 ...

and Spain, mainly with Ponferradina.

Club career

Born in

Maceió Maceió (), formerly sometimes Anglicised as Maceio, is the capital and the largest city of the coastal state of Alagoas, Brazil. The name "Maceió" is an Indigenous term for a spring. Most maceiós flow to the sea, but some get trapped and form la ...

Alagoas Alagoas (, ) is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil and is situated in the eastern part of the Northeast Region. It borders: Pernambuco (N and NW); Sergipe (S); Bahia (SW); and the Atlantic Ocean (E). Its capital is the city of Maceió. It ...

, Yuri arrived in Portugal still in his teens, joining

F.C. Maia Futebol Clube da Maia is a Portuguese football club based in Maia, Greater Metropolitan Area of Porto. Founded on 4 April 1954, it currently plays in the Porto Regional League, holding home matches at the Estádio Professor Doutor Vieira de Carv ...

in the Segunda Liga. His performances there attracted the attention of another club in the north,

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, ...

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 ...

, for which he signed in January 2003. However, Yuri could never impose himself at the side, going on to serve two loans in the process: he helped

Gil Vicente F.C. Gil Vicente Futebol Clube (), commonly known as Gil Vicente, founded in 1924, is a Portuguese football club that plays in Barcelos. It competes in the Primeira Liga, the top division of football in the country, and it is named after the Portugues ...

to avoid top-flight relegation in his five-month spell, not being able to repeat it 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 ...

in the following season. In summer 2005, Yuri moved to Iberian neighbours

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

, representing lowly

Pontevedra CF Pontevedra Club de Fútbol, S.A.D. is a List of football clubs in Spain, Spanish football team in Pontevedra, in the autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia. Founded on 16 October 1941 it currently plays in Primera División RFEF, Primera ...

. He also had a loan spell at

UD Las Palmas Unión Deportiva Las Palmas, S.A.D. is a Spanish football team based in Las Palmas, on the island of Gran Canaria in the autonomous community of Canary Islands. Founded on 22 August 1949, it plays in Segunda División, holding home games at 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 ...

, but only appeared in 12 matches out of 42 without scoring. Yuri signed for

in 2009, going on to achieve two promotions to the second tier during his spell– to which he contributed a total of 26 goals – and eventually becoming

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

. In the 2012–13 campaign he ranked third in the second division scorers' list at 21, helping his team to the seventh position. On 15 January 2017, following a brief spell in the

China League One The Chinese Football Association China League (), also known as China League One or Chinese Jia League (中甲联赛), is the second level of professional football in China. Above League One is the Chinese Super League. Prior to the formation of ...

, Yuri returned to the

Estadio El Toralín Estadio Municipal de Fútbol El Toralín is a football stadium in Ponferrada, Spain. It is currently used mostly for football matches and is the home ground of SD Ponferradina. The stadium holds 8,400 and was built in 2000. History The stad ...

aged 34. He scored in double digits in division two in 2019–20 (18 goals),

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 ...

(11) and 2021–22 (14).

Personal life

Yuri's older brother,

Igor Igor may refer to: People * Igor (given name), an East Slavic given name and a list of people with the name * Mighty Igor (1931–2002), former American professional wrestler * Igor Volkoff, a professional wrestler from NWA All-Star Wrestling * ...

, was also a footballer and a forward. They shared teams at Maia (where they arrived at a young age) and Pontevedra. His

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, " ...

Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*k ...

, also played several seasons in Spain and also represented Pontevedra.La ‘familia Gol’ (The 'Goal family')

El País ''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El Pa ...

, 15 December 2012 (in Spanish)

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Yuri (footballer 1982) 1982 births Living people People from Maceió Sportspeople from Alagoas Brazilian footballers Association football forwards Primeira Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players F.C. Maia players Boavista F.C. players Gil Vicente F.C. players G.D. Estoril Praia players Segunda División players Segunda División B players Pontevedra CF footballers UD Las Palmas players SD Ponferradina players China League One players Qingdao F.C. players Brazilian expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Portugal Expatriate footballers in Spain Expatriate footballers in China Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Spain Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in China