Pedro Miguel Almeida Lopes Pereira (born 22 January 1998) is a Portuguese 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 plays as a

right-back 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 ...

Early life

Born in

Vendas Novas Vendas Novas (), officially the City of Vendas Novas (), is a municipality in the District of Évora in Portugal. The population in 2021 was 11,245, in an area of 222.39 km2. The city has 10,625 inhabitants. The present Mayor is Valentino Sal ...

Évora District Évora District ( ) is located in Alentejo, in southern Portugal. The district capital is the city of Évora. It borders Spain. Municipalities The district is composed by 14 municipalities: * Alandroal * Arraiolos * Borba * Estremoz * Év ...

, Pereira grew up supporting

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,

but switched allegiances to city rivals Benfica upon joining them as a youth.

Club career

Sampdoria

Pereira transferred to Italian club

Sampdoria Unione Calcio Sampdoria, commonly referred to as Sampdoria (), is an Italian professional football club based in Genoa, Liguria. Sampdoria was formed in 1946 from the merger of two existing sports clubs whose roots can be traced back to the ...

in 2015, and made his professional

Serie A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest tier of the Italian football league system. Establish ...

debut on 14 September that year, as a 22nd-minute substitute for

Mattia Cassani Mattia Cassani (; born 26 August 1983) is an Italian former footballer who played as a defender. Club career Juventus Cassani started his career at Juventus during the 2002–03 Serie A season, and then left for Sampdoria on loan in January 200 ...

in a 2–0 home win over

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

. On 4 October, he registered his first assist in a 1–1 draw with

Inter Milan Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as Internazionale () or simply Inter, and colloquially known as Inter Milan in English-speaking countries, is an Italian professional Association football, football List of football ...

, also at the

Stadio Luigi Ferraris The Stadio Comunale Luigi Ferraris, also known as the Marassi from the name of the neighbourhood where it is located, is a multi-use stadium in Genoa, Italy. The home of Genoa C.F.C. and U.C. Sampdoria football clubs, it opened in 1911 and is t ...

, for

Luis Muriel Luis Fernando Muriel Fruto (born 16 April 1991) is a Colombian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Major League Soccer club Orlando City. Having started his professional career with Colombian side Deportivo Cali, Muriel joined ...

to open the scoring.

Benfica

First team

On 30 January 2017, Pereira returned to Benfica and signed a contract until 2022. He made his only first-team appearance for the ''Encarnados'' on 20 May in the last game for the already crowned champions, playing the full 90 minutes of a 2–2 draw at

Boavista FC Boavista Futebol Clube (), commonly known as Boavista, is a Portuguese professional sports club from the of Porto that competes in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese football, at the Estádio do Bessa. It is one of the oldest clubs ...

, and thereby being recorded as a league winner.

Reserve team

Pereira's only other involvement with the club was on 28 October, in the

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players who are under contract to a club but who do not regularly play in matches for the club's primary team. Reserve teams usually include players who are part of the larger first-team squad but ...

's 4–0 loss at

Gil Vicente FC Gil Vicente Futebol Clube (), commonly known as Gil Vicente, founded in 1924, is a Portuguese professional football club that plays in Barcelos. It plays their home matches at the Estádio Cidade de Barcelos. It competes in the Primeira Liga, the ...

, on the request of club president

Luís Filipe Vieira Luís Filipe Ferreira Vieira (born 22 June 1949) is a Portuguese real estate businessman who was the List of S.L. Benfica presidents, 33rd president of sports club S.L. Benfica, from October 2003 to July 2021. He was also president of the club ...

to motivate the player who was out of first-team coach

Rui Vitória Rui Carlos Pinho da Vitória (; born 16 April 1970) is a Portuguese football manager and a former player who played as a midfielder. He is currently the manager of Super League Greece club Panathinaikos. As a manager, he most notably spent th ...

's plans.

Genoa (loan)

In January 2018, Pereira was loaned back to Serie A, to Sampdoria's city rivals

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

on an 18-month deal. The ''Rossoblu'' were given the option to purchase him for €4.5 million.

Bristol City (loan)

Pereira was loaned again in August 2019, to

Bristol City Bristol City Football Club is a professional football club based in Bristol, England. The team compete in the , the second level of the English football league system. Founded in 1894, the club competed in the Southern League and Western L ...

of England's

EFL Championship The English Football League Championship, known simply as the Championship and for sponsorship purposes as Sky Bet Championship, is a professional association football league in England and Wales. Contested by 24 clubs, it is the highest divi ...

for a year with the option to buy for €6 million. He scored his first senior goal on 27 October, an 86th-minute equaliser in the Robins' 2–2 home draw with

Wigan Athletic Wigan Athletic Football Club is a professional association football club based in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The team competes in the EFL League One, the third level of the English football league system. Founded in 1932, they have p ...

, heading in a

corner kick A corner kick, commonly known as a corner, is the method of restarting play in a game of association football when the ball goes out of play over the goal line, without a goal being scored and having last been touched by a member of the defe ...

from

Niclas Eliasson Per Niclas Eliasson Santana (; born 7 December 1995) is a Swedish professional association football, footballer who plays as a Winger (association football), winger for Super League Greece, Greek Super League club AEK Athens F.C., AEK Athens and ...

at the near post.

Crotone (loan)

On 21 September 2020, Pereira was loaned back to Serie A, this time to

Crotone Crotone (; ; or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Calabria, Italy. Founded as the Achaean colony of Kroton ( or ; ), it became a great Greek city, home of the renowned mathematician-philosopher Pythagoras amongst other famous citizens, and one ...

Monza

On 23 July 2021, Pereira joined

Serie B The Serie B (), officially known as Serie BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 season. It had b ...

side

Monza Monza (, ; ; , locally ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the Lambro, River Lambro, a tributary of the Po (river), River Po, in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capital of the province of Mo ...

on a one-year loan, with a conditional obligation to buy for €2.5 million. By 31 December 2021, Benfica had sold the player's rights to Monza. Pereira began the

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 ...

by assisting Carlos Augusto's goal against

Cittadella Cittadella () is a medieval walled city in the province of Padua, northern Italy, founded in the 13th century as a military outpost of Padua. The surrounding wall has been restored and is in circumference with a diameter of around . There are fo ...

in the first round of the

2021–22 Coppa Italia The 2021–22 Coppa Italia (branded as the Coppa Italia Frecciarossa for sponsorship reasons from the second round) was the 75th edition of the national domestic tournament. The number of participating teams was reduced from the 78 of the previou ...

on 14 August 2021; the match ended in a 2–1 defeat. On 29 August, Pereira assisted

Christian Gytkjær Christian Lund Gytkjær (; born 6 May 1990) is a Danish professional footballer who plays as a striker for Italian club Bari. Early life Christian Gytkjær started his youth career playing for Roskilde, before moving on to Lyngby in 2005. In ...

in a 1–0 home win against

Cremonese Cremona ( , , ; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po (river), Po river in the middle of the Po Valley. It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local city a ...

Alanyaspor (loan)

On 18 August 2022, Monza loaned out Pereira to Turkish

Süper Lig The Süper Lig (, ''Super League''), also known as Trendyol Süper Lig for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Turkey and the highest level of the Turkish football league system. In the 2023–2024 season, twen ...

club

Alanyaspor Alanyaspor Kulübü, known as Corendon Alanyaspor due to sponsorship reasons, is a Turkish professional football club located in the city of Alanya in Antalya Province. Formed in 1948, the club colours are orange and green. Home matches are play ...

for one year.

Career statistics

Honours

Benfica *

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 ...

: 2016–17 Portugal U21 *

UEFA European Under-21 Championship The UEFA European Under-21 Championship, the UEFA Under-21 Championship or simply the Euro Under-21, is a biennial football competition contested by the European men's under-21 national teams of the UEFA member associations. Since 1992, the comp ...

runner-up:

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pereira, Pedro 1998 births Living people Footballers from Évora District Portuguese men's footballers Men's association football fullbacks Sporting CP footballers S.L. Benfica footballers UC Sampdoria players S.L. Benfica B players Genoa CFC players Bristol City F.C. players FC Crotone players AC Monza players Alanyaspor footballers Serie A players Primeira Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players English Football League players Serie B players Süper Lig players Portugal men's youth international footballers Portugal men's under-21 international footballers Portuguese expatriate men's footballers Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Italy Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in England Expatriate men's footballers in England Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Turkey Expatriate men's footballers in Turkey 21st-century Portuguese sportsmen