Fabrice Alcebiades Maieco (born 30 May 1977), commonly known as Akwá, is an Angolan former professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

player who played as a forward for the Angolan national team. From his international debut in 1995, Akwá represented Angola 78 times, scoring a record 39 goals. He played for them in three

Africa Cup of Nations The Africa Cup of Nations, commonly abbreviated as AFCON and officially known as the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons, is the main biennial international men's association football competition in Africa. It is s ...

and captained the side at the

2006 FIFA World Cup The 2006 FIFA World Cup was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international Association football, football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to FIFA World Cup hosts ...

. Akwá has a brother, Rasca, who was a professional football player for

Atlético Sport Aviação Atlético Sport Aviação, best known as ASA, was a association football, football club from Luanda, Angola. The club was founded in 1953 by a group of workers from TAAG's predecessor DTA. Mr. Jacinto Medina was the first chairman. Before Ango ...

in Angola.

Club career

Akwá was born in

Benguela Benguela (; Umbundu: Luombaka) is a city in western Angola, capital of Benguela Province. Benguela is one of Angola's most populous cities with a population of 555,124 in the city and 561,775 in the municipality, at the 2014 census. History Por ...

. He played for three football clubs in Portugal at the start of his career: Benfica, F.C. Alverca, and Académica de Coimbra. He spent four years in Portugal before moving to Qatar where he had the most successful period of his career. He spent seven years there, playing for three different teams in the

Qatar Stars League The Qatar Stars League (; abbreviated as QSL), known as Ooredoo Stars League for sponsorship reasons, is the top level football league in Qatar football league system. Contested by 12 teams, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation wi ...

. He played for

Al-Wakrah Al Wakrah () is the capital city of the Al Wakrah Municipality in Qatar. Al Wakrah's eastern edge touches the shores of the Persian Gulf and Qatar's capital Doha is situated immediately north of the city. Governed by Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Jassi ...

, Al-Gharrafa and

Qatar SC Qatar Sports Club () is a sports club based in Doha, Qatar. It is best known for its football team which competes in the Qatar Stars League. The club was founded in 1961 with the merger of two Qatari football clubs, Al-Oruba and Al-Nasour. They ...

. In his time in Qatar he won the

Arab Champions League The Arab Club Champions Cup (, ) is a club football competition organised by the Union of Arab Football Associations (UAFA) and contested by top clubs from the Arab world. The tournament is contested by a total of 37 teams from Asia and Africa. F ...

Qatar Crown Prince Cup The Qatar Cup (formerly known as Qatar Crown Prince Cup) is a tournament in men's football. It is played by the top 4 teams of the Qatar Stars League after each season. In 2013, the tournament was renamed Qatar Cup. Previous winners All-time ...

and was the league's top scorer in 1999 with 11 goals. After leaving Al-Wakrah for the second time in 2006, he remained unattached until 2007, when he moved to Angolan club

Petro Atlético Petro is a masculine given name, a surname and an Ancient Roman cognomen. It may refer to: Given name * Petro Balabuyev (1931–2007), Ukrainian airplane designer, engineer and professor, lead designer of many Antonov airplanes * Petro Doroshenko ...

. Akwá remained there for one season before retiring from professional football.

International career

Akwá won his first cap for

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

in 1995 against

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

. He accumulated 78 caps in total, scoring 39 goals. One was the winning goal that sent

to their first ever

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

. He played in all three of Angola's games at the 2006 World Cup, but did not score, and they were eliminated from their group. Akwá retired from international football after the tournament.

Politics

Akwa is currently a member of the Angolan legislative assembly. He is interested in major developments in sports in Angola.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Angola's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Akwá goal.''

Honours

Al-Gharafa *

: 1999, 2000 *Cheikh Qassim Cup: 1999 Qatar SC * Qatar Crown Prince Cup: 2002, 2004 Angola *

COSAFA Cup The COSAFA Cup (known fully as COSAFA Senior Challenge Cup) is an annual tournament for teams from Southern Africa organized by Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (COSAFA), inaugurated after the ban against the Republic of Sout ...

: 1999, 2001, 2004 Individual *

: Top scorer 1998–99 *Best stranger player in Qatar: 1999, 2004, 2005 *Angolan Player Of The Year: 2006

References

External links

*
Yahoo! sports profile

AllAfrica.com, 5 June 2007 {{DEFAULTSORT:Akwa 1977 births Living people Footballers from Benguela Angolan men's footballers Men's association football forwards S.L. Benfica footballers F.C. Alverca players Académica de Coimbra (football) players Qatar SC players Al-Wakrah SC players Al-Gharafa SC players Atlético Petróleos de Luanda players Girabola players Primeira Liga players Qatar Stars League players Angola men's international footballers 1996 African Cup of Nations players 1998 African Cup of Nations players 2006 Africa Cup of Nations players 2006 FIFA World Cup players Angolan expatriate men's footballers Angolan expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Angolan expatriate sportspeople in Qatar Expatriate men's footballers in Portugal Expatriate men's footballers in Qatar