João Daniel Mendes Real (born 13 May 1983) is a Portuguese 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

central defender 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 ...

. He made 211 competitive appearances over eight years for Académica, where he won the

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 ...

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

. He additionally represented

Naval A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operatio ...

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 ...

and

Covilhã Covilhã (), officially Covilhã City (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in the Centro, Portugal, Centro region, Portugal. The city proper had 33,691 inhabitants in 2021. The municipality population in 2021 was 46,455 in an area of . It is ...

LigaPro The Liga Portugal 2 (), also known as Liga Portugal Meu Super for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division of the Portuguese football league system. At the end of each season, the two top-finishing teams are promoted to the top-tier ...

, totalling 122 and 115 games in each division.

Club career

Born in

, Real started playing amateur football with locals of A.D. Estação. In 2003, at the age of 20, he switched to city giants Sporting Clube, twice helping them promote to the second division. In the summer of 2008, after a solid

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

– his second promotion – which brought him six goals in 25 matches, Real moved to the

with

Associação Naval 1º de Maio Associação Naval 1º de Maio or Associação Naval 1893, commonly known as Naval, was a Portuguese Association football, football club based in Figueira da Foz, Coimbra District. Founded on 1 May 1893, it last played in the Division of Honour i ...

. His

first year A freshman, fresher, first year, or colloquially frosh, is a person in the first year at an educational institution, usually a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational in ...

was quite unassuming, as he had to wait until 15 February 2009 to make his league debut, playing eight minutes in a 2–2 away draw against C.D. Trofense. In the 2009–10 campaign, with Naval again remaining in the top flight, Real appeared more, but was still a fringe player. On 17 April 2010, he found the net in the club's 3–1 win at F.C. Paços de Ferreira, but also scored an

own goal An own goal occurs in sports when a player performs actions that result in scoring points for the opposition, such as when a Association football, footballer puts a ball into their own net. In some parts of the world, the term has become a met ...

. Real featured regularly in

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

, but the

Figueira da Foz Figueira da Foz (), officially Figueira da Foz City (), often called simply Figueira for short, is a city and a municipality in the Coimbra District, in Portugal. Practically at the midpoint of the Iberian Peninsula's Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coa ...

side were relegated after a six-year stay. In June 2011, he signed for Académica de Coimbra on a free transfer. In his

with the ''Students'', he played the final of the

as they won their first trophy in 73 years via a 1–0 victory over

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,

. On 20 August 2012, in the first game of the new season, Real was

sent off In sports, an ejection (also known as dismissal, sending-off, disqualification, or early shower) is the removal of a participant from a contest due to a violation of the sport's rules. The exact violations that lead to an ejection vary depending ...

after seven minutes at S.C. Beira-Mar for conceding a

penalty kick A penalty shot or penalty kick is a play used in several sports whereby a goal is attempted during untimed play. Depending on the sport, when a player commits certain types of penalties, the opposition is awarded a penalty shot or kick attempt. ...

with a foul on Nildo Petrolina; his team recovered from a 3–0 deficit to earn a draw. In May 2014, he extended his contract for three more years. Real remained a regular for Académica over the coming years, including after their relegation in 2016. He retired in July 2019 at the age of 36, after his link expired; also hanging up his boots on the same day was Marinho, who had arrived at the club in precisely the same deal from Naval and was the only other survivor from the cup final win.

Honours

Académica *

: 2011–12

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Real, Joao 1983 births Living people Sportspeople from Covilhã Footballers from Castelo Branco District Portuguese men's footballers Men's association football central defenders Primeira Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players Segunda Divisão players S.C. Covilhã players Associação Naval 1º de Maio players Académica de Coimbra (football) players 21st-century Portuguese sportsmen