Rafael de Andrade Bittencourt Pinheiro (born 3 March 1982) simply known as Rafael, is a Brazilian 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 lea ...

who played as a

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 ...

. He also holds an Italian passport.

Biography

Early career

He left Brazil for Italy after playing 17 (out of 19) matches in 2007

Campeonato Paulista The Campeonato Paulista Série A1, commonly known as Campeonato Paulista, nicknamed Paulistão, is the top-flight professional state football league in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. Run by the São Paulo State Football Federation (FPF), ...

for

Esporte Clube São Bento Esporte Clube São Bento, commonly referred to as São Bento, is a Brazilian professional association football club based in Sorocaba, São Paulo. They currently compete in the Campeonato Paulista Série A2, the second division of the São Paul ...

, ahead of Maurício Assoline. He was an understudy of

Júlio Sérgio Júlio Sérgio Bertagnoli (born 8 November 1978) is a Brazilian football manager and former player who played as a goalkeeper. He is the current assistant manager of Coritiba. Júlio Sérgio also holds an Italian passport as his ancestor came ...

and Fábio Costa at

Santos FC Santos Futebol Clube () is a Brazilian sports club based in Vila Belmiro, a ''bairro'' in the city of Santos, São Paulo, Santos. It plays in the Campeonato Paulista, the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo's premier State football lea ...

Verona

Verona Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...

, after missing only three games (of a possible 136) in four seasons of

Lega Pro The Lega Italiano Calcio Professionistico (Italian for Professional Football Italian League), commonly known as Lega Pro (Pro League), is the governing body that runs the third tier of professional football competitions in Italy, the Serie C. I ...

, the third highest football league in Italy, Rafael played a crucial role in helping his team reach the

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 ...

Lega Pro Division One playoffs and win them, to return to

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 ...

after a four-year absence. Two seasons later, the Brazilian goalkeeper and his teammates of Verona reach the second place and were promoted to Serie A, with Rafael that impose itself as the best goalkeeper in the junior category (only 29 goals conceded in 40 games). Rafael was successively confirmed as first choice keeper for the club's Serie A comeback season in 2013, despite the signing of Bulgarian international

Nikolay Mihaylov Nikolay Borislavov Mihaylov (; born 28 June 1988) is a Bulgarian former professional association football, footballer who played as a Goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper. Personal life Mihaylov's father is former goalkeeper Borisl ...

, playing 37 games out of 38 during the full championship.

Cagliari

In 2016 he was sold to

Cagliari Cagliari (, , ; ; ; Latin: ''Caralis'') is an Comune, Italian municipality and the capital and largest city of the island of Sardinia, an Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Italy. It has about 146,62 ...

, with Marco Fossati moved to opposite direction. Cagliari also loaned out its backup goalkeeper Simone Colombi in the same week.

Spezia

On 17 September 2020, Rafael joined

Spezia La Spezia (, or ; ; , in the local ) is the capital city of the province of La Spezia and is located at the head of the Gulf of La Spezia in the southern part of the Liguria region of Italy. La Spezia is the second-largest city in the Liguri ...

on a free transfer.

Career statistics

¹European competitions include the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

.
²Other tournaments include the

Supercoppa Italiana The Supercoppa Italiana, also known as the Italian Super Cup, is an annual super cup tournament in Italian football. Founded in 1988 as a two-team competition, it has featured four teams since 2023 (the winners and runners-up of the previous ...

and Serie B relegation play–offs.

References

External links

*http://futpedia.globo.com/jogadores/rafael16 1982 births Living people Footballers from São Paulo Brazilian men's footballers Brazilian people of Italian descent Brazilian expatriate men's footballers Serie A players Serie B players Serie C players Sport Club Corinthians Paulista players Santos FC players Esporte Clube São Bento players Hellas Verona FC players Cagliari Calcio players Spezia Calcio players Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Italy Men's association football goalkeepers Bettencourt family 21st-century Brazilian sportsmen {{Brazil-footy-goalkeeper-stub