André Villas-Boas

Luís André de Pina Cabral e Villas-Boas (born 17 October 1977), known as André Villas-Boas or by his initials AVB, is a Portuguese football manager, currently the head coach of Chelsea. He has no experience as a professional footballer. He is also known for his animated celebrations in his team's dug-out.

Villas-Boas's plans to start his career as a professional player never became a reality. His career in management began courtesy of then manager Sir Bobby Robson as a 16-year-old. This came about as Robson was Villas-Boas' neighbour who saw his enthusiasm, who invited to a FC Porto training session in the mid-90s before subsequently offering him a job in the club's youth set-up and he became an interpreter. Villas-Boas gained his UEFA C coaching licence at the age of 17, before moving to become the head coach of the British Virgin Islands national team at only 21. After a spell working as the head coach of the British Virgin Islands national team at only 21. He returned to Porto picking up his B and A licences and became assistant manager to José Mourinho. He worked under Mourinho at Porto in Portugal, Chelsea in England (in the Opponent Observation Department (OOD)) and Italian club Inter Milan. He left Mourinho in October 2009, to pursue a career as manager and became appointed of Primeira Liga side Académica de Coimbra. He impressed finishing 11th in the of the season, also reaching the Portuguese League Cup semi-finals.

Villas-Boas attacking style gained praise and attracted many club, before being appointed at Porto, this time as head coach. He won first title when Porto defeated Benfica 2-0 in the Portuguese Supercup. He added to this in his impressive debut season when he won the Portuguese Primeira Liga unbeaten, the UEFA Europa League and the Portuguese Cup titles. In this he equalled Mourinho's record and furthur followed in his footsteps when he resigned in the summer and after the Blues met his record €15 million buyout clause and sign for Chelsea swapping the Estadio do Dragao for Stamford Bridge. His €15 million (£13.3 million) move from Porto to Chelsea is the most expensive ever by a manager.

Personal Life

He has been married since 2004 to Joana Teixeira, and has two daughters. Villas-Boas speaks English fluently[dubious – discuss], having been taught by his paternal grandmother Margaret Kendall, whose mother moved to Portugal from Cheadle, Greater Manchester, England, to start a wine business. Her brother Douglas Kendall was a World War II hero who flew as a wing commander in the RAF. Villas-Boas' paternal great-uncle José Rui Villas-Boas was the viscount of Guilhomil, a title initially bestowed on his father José Gerado Villas-Boas by King Carlos I in 1890. Villas-Boas' brother João Luís de Pina Cabral Villas-Boas, is a Portuguese stage and television actor. He appeared as the character Criado in the lavish, costume drama Mistérios de Lisboa (Mysteries of Lisbon).

From : www.wikipedia.org

Pedro Passos Coelho

Pedro Manuel Mamede Passos Coelho (born in Coimbra, on July 24, 1964) is Prime Minister of Portugal. Passos Coelho started very early in politics, becoming the national leader of the youth branch of the Social Democratic Party. A business manager by trade, he was elected President of the Social Democratic Party and has led the XIX Governo Constitucional (19th Constitutional Government of Portugal) as head of government since 21 June 2011.

Early Years

Pedro Passos Coelho was born in the parish of Sé Nova in Coimbra, Portugal, in 24 July 1964. He is the youngest son of a medical doctor, António Passos Coelho (born Vale de Nogueiras, Vila Real, Douro, 31 May 1926) and the woman he married in 1955, a nurse, Maria Rodrigues Santos Mamede (born Santana da Serra, Ourique, Baixo Alentejo, c. 1930). He has an older sister, Maria Teresa Mamede Passos Coelho, a medical doctor, and an older brother, Miguel Mamede Passos Coelho, who was born with cerebral palsy.

He spent his childhood in Angola—one of Portugal's overseas possessions by then—where his father practised medicine. After the Carnation Revolution of 1974 and the independence of the territory as the People's Republic of Angola, he returned with his family to Europe and settled in Vila Real, Northern Portugal.

He started very early in politics, as a 14 year old boy, and had a long and prominent career in the youth branch of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the JSD, where he was a member of the National Council (1980–1982). As a young student, his academic interests, vocations and ambitions where directed towards a future career in medicine, in order to follow his father and older sister steps, or instead mathematics. However, his largest ambition and vocation revolved around politics.

Personal Life

Passos Coelho lives in Massamá, Greater Lisbon. He was married to Fátima Padinha, a former singer with the girl band Doce, by whom he has two daughters, Joana Padinha Passos Coelho (born 1988) and Catarina Padinha Passos Coelho (born 1993), and he is now married to Laura Ferreira, a physiotherapy technician, born in Bissau, Portuguese Guinea, by whom he has one daughter, Júlia Ferreira Passos Coelho (born 2007). His older daughter, Joana Padinha Passos Coelho suffered a life threatening accident at young age, with sequels. Apart from his native language, he is fluent in English.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Aníbal Cavaco Silva

Aníbal António Cavaco Silva, GCC (born 15 July 1939), is the President of Portugal. He won the Portuguese presidential election on 22 January 2006 and was re-elected on 23 January 2011, for a second five-year term. Cavaco Silva was sworn in on 9 March 2006.

He was previously Prime Minister of Portugal from 6 November 1985 to 28 October 1995. His tenure of ten years was the longest of any Prime Minister since Salazar, and he was the first Portuguese Prime Minister to have won an absolute parliamentary majority under the current constitutional system (which was established after the country's redemocratization following the Carnation Revolution).

Early Life and Career

He was born in Boliqueime, Loulé, Algarve, the son of Teodoro Gonçalves Silva (Loulé, Boliqueime, Maritenda, 30 August 1912 - 30 September 2007) and wife (m. Loulé, Boliqueime, 4 March 1935) Maria do Nascimento Cavaco (b. Loulé, Boliqueime, Maritenda, 27 December 1912), Aníbal António Cavaco Silva was an undistinguished student at school. As a 13-year-old, he flunked at the 3rd grade of the Commercial School, and his grandfather put him working on the farm as a punishment. After returning to school, Cavaco went on to become an accomplished student. Cavaco Silva then went to Lisbon enrolling at the Instituto Superior de Ciências Económicas e Financeiras de Lisboa (ISCEF) of the Technical University of Lisbon (UTL) (currently the Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão (ISEG) of the Technical University of Lisbon), and obtained in 1963, with distinction, a degree in economics and finance (he scored a mark of 16 out of 20). While studying in Lisbon, Cavaco Silva was an athlete of CDUL athletics department from 1958 to 1963. In 1964 he married Maria Alves da Silva, a lecturer in Germanic philology at the University of Lisbon, with whom he has two children (Bruno and Patrícia Maria), and took compulsory military service in the then Portuguese Overseas Province of Mozambique, as an official of military administration in Lourenço Marques (now the city of Maputo). His teaching career began in 1966 as assistant to ISCEF, but two years later Cavaco Silva went to the University of York, in the United Kingdom, where, in 1973, he was awarded a doctorate in economics. His thesis at York was a defense of (then popular) Keynesian economics (Neo-Keynesianism would influence his thought as Prime Minister later and he still self-identifies as a Neo-Keynesian). Returning to Portugal, he took up a post as assistant professor in ISCEF (1974), professor at the Catholic University of Portugal (1975), extraordinary professor at the New University of Lisbon (1979) and finally director of the Office of Studies of the Bank of Portugal.

He only became active in politics after the Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, later that year joining the then PPD, a political party headed by Francisco Sá Carneiro. Cavaco Silva, was appointed Minister of Finance by Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro in 1980. He gained a reputation as an economic liberal, gradually dismantling regulations inhibiting free enterprise. He refused to serve in the Center Bloc coalition of Socialists and Social Democrats (PSD) that governed from 1983 to 1985, and his election to the leadership of the PSD on 2 June 1985, portended the end of the coalition.

Professor Cavaco Silva has published several academic works in economics, including in subfields like monetary policy and monetary unions.

Family

He married at the Church of the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora, São Vicente de Fora, Lisbon, on 20 October 1964 Maria Alves da Silva (b. Silves, São Bartolomeu de Messines, 31 October 1938), daughter of Francisco dos Santos Silva and wife Adelina de Jesus Pincho, with whom he has had two children.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Américo Amorim

Américo Ferreira Amorim (born Mozelos, Santa Maria da Feira, 21 July 1934) is a Portuguese entrepreneur, the third of four sons of Américo Alves Amorim.

He was ranked by Forbes as the 212th richest person in the world in 2010.

He owns a 50% interest in Corticeira Amorim, the world's largest producer of cork, with $650 million in sales. He also has interests in finance and energy.

He is married to Maria Fernanda de Oliveira Ramos, daughter of Medical Doctor Manuel Pinto Moreira Ramos and Maria José Nunes de Oliveira, and has three daughters.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Luís Figo

Luís Filipe Madeira Caeiro Figo, OIH, (born 4 November 1972) is a Portuguese former international footballer. He played as a midfielder for Sporting CP, FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Internazionale, during a career which spanned over a period of 20 years. He retired from football on 31 May 2009. He won 127 caps for the Portuguese national football team, a number that makes him the most capped Portuguese player in history.

Figo was the 2000 European Footballer of the Year, the 2001 FIFA World Player of the Year, and was named amongst the FIFA 100.

Figo is one of the few football players to have played for both the Spanish rival clubs FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. He had a successful career highlighted by several trophy wins, such as one Portuguese Cup, four La Liga titles, two Spanish Cups, three Spanish Super Cups, one UEFA Champions League title, one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, two UEFA Super Cups, one Intercontinental Cup, four Serie A titles, one Italian Cup and three Italian Super Cups.

Personal life

Figo is married to Swedish model Helen Svedin. They met at a flamenco show and are now married with three daughters – Daniela (born in March 1999), Martina (born in April 2002), and Stella (born 9 December 2004). Along with his countryman, former Portugal national team manager and former youth team coach Carlos Queirós, Figo was briefly joint seat holder for A1 Team Portugal, in A1 Grand Prix, during the 2005–06 season. He now owns an upscale bar in the Algarve region of Portugal. It has been rumoured that he will come out of retirement to play a short guest stint with Australian A-League club Sydney FC. He has expressed interest in playing in the A-League shortly before retirement.

Figo is an ambassador for the Stop TB Partnership in the fight against tuberculosis. He works closely with Internazionale, serving as an ambassador for the club at functions across Europe. He is also a board member of the Inter Campus charity project run by Inter Milan.

From : www.wikipedia.org

Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, OIH, (born 5 February 1985), commonly known as Cristiano Ronaldo, is a Portuguese footballer who plays as a winger or striker for Spanish La Liga club Real Madrid and is the captain of the Portuguese national team. Ronaldo became the most expensive player in football history after moving from Manchester United to Real Madrid in a transfer deal worth £80 million (€94m, US$132m). In addition, his contract with Real Madrid, in which he was to be paid £11 million per year over the following six years, made him the highest-paid football player in the world at the time, and his buyout clause was valued at €1 billion as per his contract.

Ronaldo began his career as a youth player for Andorinha, where he played for two years, before moving to Nacional. In 1997, he made a move to Portuguese giants Sporting Clube de Portugal. Ronaldo's precocious talent caught the attention of Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, who signed the 18-year-old for £12.24 million in 2003. The following season, Ronaldo won his first club honour, the FA Cup and played at Euro 2004 with Portugal. Ronaldo scored his first international goal in the opening game of the tournament against Greece and also helped Portugal reach the final.

Ronaldo was the first player to win all four main PFA and FWA awards, doing so in 2007. In 2008, Ronaldo won the Champions League with United, was named best forward and player of the tournament and was the competition's top goalscorer as well as winning the European Golden Shoe, becoming the first winger to do so, and topping the Premier League Golden Boot award. He won three of the four main PFA and FWA trophies, only missing the PFA Young Player of the Year, and was named the FIFPro, World Soccer and Onze d'Or Footballer of the Year and the FIFA World Player of the Year, in addition to becoming Manchester United's first Ballon d'Or winner in 40 years. Ronaldo holds the distinction of being the first player to win the FIFA Puskás Award, an honour handed by FIFA to the best goal of the year. He scored that goal from 40 yards out against FC Porto in a UEFA Champions League quarter-final match, while playing for Manchester United. Three-time Ballon d'Or winner Johan Cruyff said in an interview on 2 April 2008, "Ronaldo is better than George Best and Denis Law, who were two brilliant and great players in the history of United."

On 15 May 2011, Ronaldo became the highest goalscorer in a season in the history of Real Madrid with 51 goals, surpassing the club's previous high of 49 by Ferenc Puskás. He would later finish the season with a total of 53 goals, making him the first Real Madrid player to ever reach and surpass 50 goals in a season. Six days later, Ronaldo broke the record of most goals ever scored in a season in La Liga with 40, surpassing Telmo Zarra's mark established in 1951 and Hugo Sanchez's mark matched in 1990. Ronaldo also broke Zarra's record of most goals per minute, with a goal scored every 70.7 minutes. The newspaper Marca, the official deliverer of the Pichichi Trophy (the top La Liga goalscorer award), claimed that Ronaldo scored 41 goals. By doing so, he won the European Golden Shoe award once again, becoming the first player to win the trophy in two different championships.

Early life

Ronaldo was born in Santo António, a neighbourhood of Funchal, Madeira, the youngest child of Maria Dolores dos Santos Aveiro, a cook, and José Dinis Aveiro, a municipal gardener. His second given name "Ronaldo" was chosen after then-U.S. president Ronald Reagan, who was his father's favourite actor. He has one older brother, Hugo, and two older sisters, Elma and Liliana Cátia. His great-grandmother Isabel da Piedade was from Cape Verde.

Personal life

Ronaldo's father, José Dinis Aveiro, died of an alcoholism-related liver condition in September 2005 at age 52 when Ronaldo was 20. Ronaldo's mother and Manchester United coach have stated that he does not drink alcohol as a result and he has received libel damages over a Daily Mirror article that reported him drinking heavily in a nightclub while recovering from an injury in July 2008.

Ronaldo's autobiography, titled Moments, was published in December 2007. Along with one of his sisters, Ronaldo opened a fashion boutique under the name "CR7" (his initials and shirt number). There are currently two CR7 shop locations, both of which are in Portugal; one in Lisbon and the other in Madeira.

On 9 June 2010, Madame Tussauds London unveiled Ronaldo's waxwork as part of the build-up to the World Cup. Ronaldo joined fellow footballers Steven Gerrard, Pelé and David Beckham at the event's venue.

Ronaldo announced that he had become a father on 3 July 2010. His official Facebook and Twitter pages reference the birth of his son and request privacy. The child, named Cristiano is in full custody of Ronaldo.

In August 2010, Ronaldo reached 10 million fans on Facebook and in doing so made history by becoming the first non-American personality ever to achieve that kind of success on the social networking site.

Ronaldo has previously dated English models Alice Goodwin and Gemma Atkinson, and since the start of 2010, he has been dating Russian model Irina Shayk.

On December 5, 2011, Cristiano launched an iPhone game called Heads Up with Cristiano. The game is created by developer RockLive.

From : www.wikipedia.org 

José Mourinho

José Mário dos Santos Félix Mourinho (born 26 January 1963 in Setúbal) is a Portuguese football manager and the current manager of Real Madrid. He is commonly known as "The Special One". Mourinho is regarded by some players, coaches, and critics as one of the best ever coaches in football.

Mourinho started out as a player but he was unable to forge a meaningful career in the game and eventually switched to management. After spells working as an assistant manager and a youth team coach in the early 1990s, he became an interpreter for Sir Bobby Robson. There he worked with him at Sporting Clube de Portugal and Porto in Portugal, before following him to Spanish club Barcelona. He remained in the Catalonian club after Robson's departure and worked with the successor, Louis van Gaal.

He began focusing on coaching and impressed with brief but successful managerial periods at Benfica and União de Leiria. He returned to Porto in 2002, this time as head coach, winning the Primeira Liga, Taça de Portugal, and UEFA Cup in 2003. In 2004 Mourinho guided the team to the top of the league for a second time and won the highest honour in European club football, the UEFA Champions League.

Mourinho moved to Chelsea the following year and won two consecutive Premier League titles in 2005 and 2006. He often courted controversy for his outspokenness, but his victories at Chelsea and Porto established him as one of the world's top football managers.

In mid-2008 he moved to Italy's Serie A, signing a three-year contract with Internazionale. Within three months he had won his first Italian honour, the Supercoppa Italiana, and completed his first season in Italy by winning the Serie A league title. Mourinho followed on from that the next season by winning the first treble in Italian history, the Serie A league title, Coppa Italia, and the UEFA Champions League, thus becoming the third manager in football history to win two UEFA Champions League with two different teams, after Ernst Happel and Ottmar Hitzfeld. Due to these achievements he won the first ever FIFA Ballon d'Or Best Coach Award in 2010.

On 28 May 2010, his appointment as head coach at Real Madrid was confirmed, signing a four-year contract. His first honour with the team was winning the 2011 Copa del Rey Final, the first time Madrid had won the competition since 1993.

Early Life

José Mário dos Santos Félix Mourinho was born in 1963 to a large middle-class family in Setúbal, Portugal, the son of Félix Mourinho and wife Maria Júlia Carrajola dos Santos. His father played football professionally for Os Belenenses and Vitória de Setúbal, earning one cap for Portugal in the course of his career. His mother was a primary school teacher from an affluent background; her uncle funded the construction of the Vitória de Setúbal football stadium. The fall of António de Oliveira Salazar's Estado Novo regime in April 1974, however, led to the family losing all but a single property in nearby Palmela.

From an early age, football was a major part of Mourinho's life. Footballing commitments in Porto and Lisbon meant that Félix was often separated from his son. As a teenager, Mourinho travelled to attend his father's weekend matches and when his father had became a coach, Mourinho began observing training sessions and scouting opposing teams. Mourinho wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father by becoming a footballer and so he joined the Belenenses youth team. Graduating to the senior level, he played at Rio Ave (where his father was coach), Belenenses, and Sesimbra. He lacked the requisite pace and power to become a professional and chose to focus on becoming a football coach instead.

His mother enrolled him in a business school, Mourinho dropped out on his first day, deciding he would rather focus on sport, and chose to attend the Instituto Superior de Educação Física (ISEF), Technical University of Lisbon, to study sports science. He taught physical education at various schools and after five years, he had earned his diploma, receiving consistently good marks throughout the course. After attending coaching courses held by the English and Scottish Football Associations, former Scotland manager Andy Roxburgh took note of the young Portuguese's drive and attention to detail. Mourinho sought to redefine the role of coach in football by mixing coaching theory with motivational and psychological techniques.

 Personal life

Mourinho met his wife Matilde "Tami" Faria, born in Angola, when they were teenagers in Setúbal, Portugal, and the couple married in 1989. Their first child, daughter Matilde, was born in 1996 and they had their first son, José Mário, Jr., four years later. Mourinho, whilst dedicated to football, describes his family as the centre of his life and has noted that the "most important thing is my family and being a good father." He was selected as the New Statesman Man of the Year 2005 and was described as a man devoted to both his family and his work. Mourinho has also been a part of social initiatives and charity work, helping with a youth project, bringing Israeli and Palestinian children together through football and donating his "lucky" jacket to Tsunami Relief, earning £22,000 for the charity. José Mourinho is a Catholic.

Widely known for his strong personality, refined dress sense, and quirky comments at press conferences, Mourinho has experienced fame outside of football circles, featuring in European advertisement campaigns for Samsung, American Express and adidas, amongst others. An unofficial biography of Mourinho, titled O Vencedor – De Setúbal a Stamford Bridge (The Winner – from Setúbal to Stamford Bridge), was a best seller in Portugal. However, Mourinho did not authorise the biography and attempted, unsuccessfully, to prevent the book from being published.

Mourinho was part of an unusual event in May 2007 when he was arrested for preventing animal welfare officials from putting his dog in to quarantine. The dog had not been sufficiently inoculated but the situation was resolved after it was returned to Portugal and Mourinho received a police caution.

In 23 March 2009, José Mourinho was awarded a doctorate honoris causa degree by the Technical University of Lisbon for his accomplishments in football.

Mourinho speaks Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French and English fluently. He also speaks Catalan. In October 2010, Mourinho was ranked No.9 on the list of Most Influential Men published by AskMen.com. In December 2011 he was named 'Rockstar of the year' by the Spanish version of Rolling Stone magazine.

From : www.wikipedia.org