Manuel António Leitão da Silva (born 29 January 1946), known as Manuel António, 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 ...

who played as a striker. He amassed

Primeira Liga The Primeira Liga (; English: Premier League, also written as Liga Portugal 1), also known as Liga Portugal Bwin for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga Portugal ...

totals of 247 matches and 111 goals over 12 seasons, with Académica (two spells) and

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropo ...

Club career

Manuel António was born in

Santo Tirso Santo Tirso () is a city and municipality located in the north of Porto Metropolitan Area, 25 km from central Porto, Portugal. In the region, the Ave Valley, there is a large center of textile industry. The population in 2011 was 71,530, i ...

Porto District The District of Porto ( pt, Distrito do 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 and Viseu districts to the south, B ...

. In a 14-year professional career, he played almost exclusively for two teams; having started out at Académica de Coimbra, his excellent performances earned him a transfer – at only 19 – to

FC Porto Futebol Clube do Porto, MHIH, 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 football team playing in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Por ...

, where he appeared sparingly over three years (still managing to score regularly). In 1968, Manuel António returned to Académica, being crowned the

's top scorer in the first season in his second spell, with the ''Students'' finishing in sixth place. He all but saw out his career eight years later at the same club, still having a further four campaigns in double digits.

International career

Manuel António won four

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 Ja ...

for

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, In recognized minority languages of Portugal: :* mwl, República Pertuesa is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula, in Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Macaronesian ...

in eight months, his debut coming on 6 April 1969 in a 0–0 friendly draw against

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

Later life

After retiring, Manuel António majored in

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, and Health promotion ...

, being in charge of

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto, and Braga, it is the largest cit ...

's Portuguese Institute of Oncology for several years.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Antonio, Manuel 1946 births Living people People from Santo Tirso Portuguese men's footballers Footballers from Porto District Men's association football forwards Primeira Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players Académica de Coimbra (football) players FC Porto players U.D. Leiria players Portugal men's international footballers