João Martins (footballer, Born 1927)
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João Baptista Martins (3 September 1927 – 16 November 1993) 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 striker.


Club career

Born in
Sines Sines () is a town and a municipality in Portugal. The municipality, divided into two parishes, has around 14,214 inhabitants (2021) in an area of . Sines holds an important oil refinery and several petrochemical industries. It is also a popular ...
,
Setúbal District The District of Setúbal ( ) is a district located in the south-west of Portugal. It is named for its capital, the city of Setúbal. Geography It is delimited by Lisbon District and Santarém District on the north, Évora District on the eas ...
, Martins signed with
Sporting CP Sporting Clube de Portugal (), otherwise referred to as Sporting CP or simply Sporting (particularly within Portugal), or as Sporting Lisbon in other countries,
at the age of 19 for 100
escudo The escudo ( Portuguese: 'shield') is a unit of currency which is used in Cape Verde, and which has been used by Portugal, Spain and their colonies. The original coin was worth 16 silver . The Cape Verdean escudo is, and the Portuguese escudo ...
s, after leaving G.D. CUF as the
works team A works team, sometimes also referred to as factory team and company team, is a sports team that is financed and run by a manufacturer or other business, institution, or organization in a broad sense. Works teams have very close ties with thei ...
did not find him an occupation as originally promised. In his 13-year tenure in
Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...
, he won seven
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 ...
championships and the 1954
Taça de Portugal The Taça de Portugal (; ) is an annual association football competition and the premier knockout tournament in Portuguese football. For sponsorship reasons, it has been known as Taça de Portugal Generali Tranquilidade since the 2024–25 seaso ...
. In the 1953–54 season, Martins scored 31 times in 23 matches for the champions. On 4 September 1955, he scored the first-ever goal in the history of 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 ...
, opening a 3–3 home draw against
FK Partizan Fudbalski klub Partizan ( sr-Cyrl, Фудбалски клуб Партизан, ; ), often referred to in English as Partizan Belgrade, is a Serbian professional Football club (association football), football club based in Belgrade. It forms ...
at the
Estádio Nacional The Estádio Nacional ', also known as Jamor National Sports Centre (), is a football stadium. It is located in the civil parish of Algés, Linda-a-Velha e Cruz Quebrada-Dafundo, in the municipality of Oeiras, in the southwestern part of Lisb ...
. Martins was deployed in every attacking position during his spell with Sporting. The scorer of 258 competitive goals, he was also used as a makeshift
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 ...
in a game against
Clube Oriental de Lisboa Clube Oriental de Lisboa is a Portuguese football club based in Lisbon. Founded in 1946, it currently competes in the Campeonato de Portugal, holding home games at ''Campo Engenheiro Carlos Salema'', with an 8,500 capacity. History In January 19 ...
.


International career

Martins won 11
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 ...
for
Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...
over four and a half years. His first came on 23 November 1952, in a 1–1 friendly with
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
.


Later life and death

Martins settled in France after retiring, and worked in a factory. He died in that country in November 1993 aged 66, due to
heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome caused by an impairment in the heart's ability to Cardiac cycle, fill with and pump blood. Although symptoms vary based on which side of the heart is affected, HF ...
.


See also

*
List of one-club men in association football This article is a list of one-club men, sportsmen who have played their entire professional career with only one club, in Association football, football. Retired players :''Players must have been at their club for a minimum of ten years to be i ...


References


External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Martins, Joao 1927 births 1993 deaths People from Sines Portuguese men's footballers Footballers from Setúbal District Men's association football forwards Primeira Liga players G.D. Fabril players Sporting CP footballers Portugal men's international footballers 20th-century Portuguese sportsmen