Virgílio Marques Mendes (17 November 1926 – 24 April 2009) was 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 ...

, noticed as a leading figure of

FC Porto Futebol Clube do Porto, Order of Prince Henry, MHIH, Order of Merit (Portugal), 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 association footbal ...

and the Portugal national team during the 1950s.

Career

He won the national

Primeira Divisão 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 P ...

championship title twice with FC Porto, in the 1955–56 and 1958–59 seasons. For the national team, Virgílio debuted in a friendly 1–4 loss to Italy on 27 February 1949, in a game that earned him the nickname of "O Leão de Génova" (The Lion of Genoa), for whom he would be known for the rest of his career. He was a constant figure in the national team for the next 11 years, and he played in the

1950 Events January * January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed. * January 5 – 1950 Sverdlovsk plane crash, Sverdlovsk plane crash: ''Aeroflot'' Lisunov Li-2 ...

1954 Events January * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head ...

and 1958 World Cup qualification. The last one is remembered for the historical 3–0 win over

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, which ultimately resulted in the Italians missing the

1958 FIFA World Cup The 1958 FIFA World Cup was the 6th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in Sweden from 8 to 29 June 1958. It was the first and only FIFA World Cup to be played in a Nordic country. Br ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

, the only time the Italians have missed a World Cup tournament. Virgílio's last game came at age 33, in the

Euro 1960 The 1960 European Nations' Cup was the inaugural tournament of the UEFA European Championship, held every four years and organised by UEFA. The first tournament was held in France. It was won by the Soviet Union, who beat Yugoslavia 2–1 in Par ...

1–5 quarter-final loss to Yugoslavia, on 22 May 1960. That would be his 39th

cap A cap is a flat headgear, usually with a visor. Caps have crowns that fit very close to the head. They made their first appearance as early as 3200 BC. The origin of the word "cap" comes from the Old French word "chapeau" which means "head co ...

for the national team, which made Virgílio the most capped Portuguese football player of his time. He coached FC Porto for a brief period in 1966 as a caretaker, when he succeeded

Flávio Costa Flávio Rodrigues da Costa (14 September 1906 – 22 November 1999) was a Brazilian football player and manager. He managed the Rio de Janeiro clubs Vasco da Gama and Flamengo, as well as Colo Colo of Chile, and FC Porto of Portugal. Costa coac ...

in his second stint with the club. He also managed

SC Mirandela Sport Clube de Mirandela ''(Mirandela)'' is a Portuguese football club based in the city of Mirandela, in northeast Portugal (Trás-os-Montes region). Background Mirandela currently plays in the Segunda Divisão Zona Norte, which is the third ...

in the 1979–80 season, leading the team to the first place of the

Terceira Divisão : The Terceira Divisão Portuguesa (in English: ''Portuguese Third Division'') was a football league in Portugal, situated at the fourth level of the Portuguese football league system. The Third Division was initially the third level of the Por ...

– Série A.

Career statistics

Club

''Appearances and goals by club, season and competition.''

Honours

Player

Porto *

: 1955–56, 1958–59 *

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 ...

: 1955–56, 1957–58

Manager

Mirandela *

– Série A: 1979–80

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mendes, Virgilio 1926 births 2009 deaths Portuguese men's footballers Primeira Liga players FC Porto players Portugal men's international footballers Men's association football defenders FC Porto managers People from Entroncamento Footballers from Santarém District 20th-century Portuguese sportsmen