Abílio António Gomes Novais (born 24 August 1967), known simply as Abílio as a player, is a Portuguese retired

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 an

attacking midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. ...

, currently

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

of C.F. Oliveira do Douro. Over the course of 13 seasons, he amassed

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 ...

totals of 342 matches and 46 goals, mainly at Salgueiros.

Club career

Born in

Vila Nova de Gaia Vila Nova de Gaia (; ), or simply Gaia, is a city and a municipality in Porto District in Norte Region, Portugal, Norte Region, Portugal. It is located south of the city of Porto on the other side of the Douro River. The city proper had a populati ...

Porto District The Districts of Portugal, District of Porto ( ) is located on the north-west coast of Portugal. The district capital is the city of Porto, the second largest city in the country. It is bordered by the Aveiro (district), Aveiro and Viseu (distric ...

, Abílio competed in the

from 1988 to 2001, starting by playing all 38 games for

Leixões S.C. Leixões Sport Club (), commonly known as Leixões, is a Portuguese sports club from Matosinhos. It is organised into several departments for many sports, such as athletics, boxing, football, futsal, handball, karate, swimming, volleyball, wat ...

as the season ended in relegation. He nonetheless signed for

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 ...

, being rarely used during his tenure as he was acquired to be a

right-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

and was barred in that position by legendary

João Pinto João Manuel Vieira Pinto (; born 19 August 1971) is a Portuguese retired professional footballer who played mostly as a forward. Blessed with playmaking and goalscoring ability, he made his name mostly at a domestic level and as a key figu ...

, and subsequently joined S.C. Salgueiros. Abílio totalled 26 league goals for Salgueiros in his last four years, then moved to S.C. Campomaiorense and C.D. Aves, retiring in 2003 at the age of 36 with his first club Leixões, in the third division. He subsequently started working as a manager.

Personal life

Novais' son,

João João is a given name of Portuguese origin. It is equivalent to the given name John. The diminutive is Joãozinho and the feminine is Joana. It is widespread in Portuguese-speaking countries. Notable people with the name are enumerated in t ...

, was also a footballer and a midfielder. He too played for Leixões.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Novais, Abilio 1967 births Living people 20th-century Portuguese sportsmen Portuguese men's footballers Footballers from Vila Nova de Gaia Men's association football midfielders Primeira Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players Segunda Divisão players U.D. Oliveirense players C.F. União de Lamas players Leixões S.C. players FC Porto players S.C. Salgueiros players C.F. Os Belenenses players S.C. Campomaiorense players C.D. Aves players Portuguese football managers Liga Portugal 2 managers Leixões S.C. managers Varzim S.C. managers