José Alberto Teixeira Ferreirinha (21 February 1960 – 4 February 1990), known as Zé Beto, 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 lea ...

who played as a

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), 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 i ...

. He spent almost his entire career with

Porto Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...

, his life being cut short at 29 in a

road accident A traffic collision, also known as a motor vehicle collision, or car crash, occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other moving or stationary obstruction, such as a tree, pole or building. Tr ...

Club career

Born in

Matosinhos Matosinhos () is a City#Portugal, city and a Concelho, municipality in the district of Porto District, Porto in Portugal. The municipality covers an area of approximately and had 172,557 inhabitants in 2021. It is bordered by the municipalities o ...

, Zé Beto arrived at

FC Porto Futebol Clube do Porto, Order of Prince Henry, MHIH, Order of Merit (Portugal), 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 association footbal ...

at the age of 17, making his

Primeira Liga The Primeira Liga (), also known as Liga Portugal Betclic for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Portugal and the highest level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga ...

debut two years later on loan to

S.C. Beira-Mar Sport Clube Beira-Mar (), commonly known as 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 Ave ...

. After three more seasons as a

backup In information technology, a backup, or data backup is a copy of computer data taken and stored elsewhere so that it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. The verb form, referring to the process of doing so, is "wikt:back ...

, he was made first-choice for the 1983–84 campaign. Zé Beto was the starter when Porto lost 2–1 against

Juventus FC Juventus Football Club (; from , ), commonly known as Juventus or colloquially as Juve (), is an Italian professional Association football, football List of football clubs in Italy, club based in Turin, Piedmont, who compete in Serie A, the ...

in the final of the

1983–84 European Cup Winners' Cup The 1983–84 season of the European Cup Winners' Cup was won by Juventus in a final against Porto. The next year, the club went on to complete a full complement of European trophies with the European Cup. Aberdeen were the defending champions, bu ...

, in controversial manner: losing his temper, the player assaulted the

assistant referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other title ...

with his own flag, being suspended by

UEFA The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; ; ) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach soccer, beach football in Europe and the List of transcontinental countries#A ...

for a period of two years. In the following seasons, Zé Beto kept an interesting battle for first-choice status with Pole

Józef Młynarczyk Józef Młynarczyk (born 20 September 1953) is a Polish former professional Association football, footballer who played as a Goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper. He is currently the goalkeeping coach for the Poland national under-21 fo ...

(signed in January 1986), eventually losing his position and being further demoted after the emergence of 18-year-old

Vítor Baía Vítor Manuel Martins Baía, OIH (; born 15 October 1969) is a Portuguese former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. One of the most decorated goalkeepers of all time, his career was intimately connected with FC Porto, which h ...

. He was on the substitutes bench for the northerners' wins in both the

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by top-division European clubs. The competition begins with a round robi ...

and Intercontinental Cup, in 1987. Zé Beto died 17 days shy of his 30th birthday, in a car crash in

International career

After the defection of most of the Portugal national team following the

Saltillo Affair The Saltillo Affair () was a series of controversies surrounding the Portugal national football team during its participation in the Mexico 1986 FIFA World Cup. The affair was named after the Mexican city of Saltillo, Coahuila, in which the team ...

at the

1986 FIFA World Cup The 1986 FIFA World Cup was the 13th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial Association football, football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in Mexico from 31 May to 29 June 1986. The tournament was the second to feature a 24-tea ...

, Zé Beto earned three

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 ...

during the rest of that year and the following. He made his debut on 12 October 1986, in a 1–1 home draw against

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

for the

UEFA Euro 1988 The 1988 UEFA European Football Championship final tournament was held in West Germany from 10 to 25 June 1988. It was the eighth UEFA European Championship, which is held every four years and supported by UEFA. France national football team, Fr ...

qualifiers. Previously, Zé Beto played three out of four games at the

1979 FIFA World Youth Championship The 1979 FIFA World Youth Championship, the second staging of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, FIFA World Youth Championship, was held in Japan from 26 August to 7 September 1979. It was the first FIFA tournament played in Asia. The tournament took place i ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, as the under-20s reached the last-eight.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ze Beto 1960 births 1990 deaths 20th-century Portuguese sportsmen Portuguese men's footballers Footballers from Matosinhos Men's association football goalkeepers Primeira Liga players FC Porto players S.C. Beira-Mar players UEFA Champions League–winning players Portugal men's youth international footballers Portugal men's international footballers Road incident deaths in Portugal