Carlos Alberto Correia Fortes (born 20 October 1968), commonly known as Cao, is a former professional

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

defensive 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. ...

Club career

Cao was born in

Praia Praia (, Portuguese for "beach") is the capital and largest city of Cape Verde.Cape Verde Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...

. After unsuccessfully emerging through

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 ...

's youth academy, he went on to play 12 seasons in the two major levels of Portuguese football, representing Rio Ave FC ( Segunda Liga), F.C. Tirsense (

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 ...

), Leça FC (first and second tiers), S.C. Salgueiros (both), S.C. Campomaiorense (both) and F.C. Felgueiras (second). Cao retired from professional football in 2003 with totals of 284 matches and 11 goals, going on to spend the rest of his career in amateur football, which included a third spell with Leça. Subsequently, he worked as a

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art that involves creating visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of ...

er.

International career

Cao was part of the Portugal under-20 team that won the

1991 FIFA World Youth Championship The 1991 FIFA World Youth Championship was the eighth staging of the FIFA World Youth Championship, an international football competition organized by FIFA for men's youth national teams, and the eighth since it was established in 1977 as the FIF ...

, with the competition being held on home soil. In 2002, it was revealed that he had in fact been born in 1968, meaning he was crowned champion at the age of 22.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cao 1968 births Living people 20th-century Portuguese sportsmen Cape Verdean men's footballers Portuguese men's footballers Footballers from Praia Men's association football midfielders Primeira Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players FC Porto players Rio Ave F.C. players F.C. Tirsense players Leça F.C. players S.C. Salgueiros players S.C. Campomaiorense players F.C. Felgueiras players Portugal men's youth international footballers Portugal men's under-21 international footballers