RICARDO QUARESMA - THE GYPSY SOCCER STAR
RICARDO QUARESMA
Ricardo Quaresma, the Portugal and FC Porto football (soccer) star was born in Lisbon - Portugal on the 26th of September 1983 and is nicknamed “Ciganito” (little gypsy), because of his gypsy descent.
Like so many fantastic Portuguese players, he started his football career with the famous Sporting Lisbon Football Academy. He made his professional debut with Sporting in 2001 having Cristiano Ronaldo as his team-mate. Two years later in 2003 at the age of 20, he was transferred to FC Barcelona.
He did not have a very good year with the Catalan team and at the end of the season refused to play for Barça as long as Frank Rijkaard remained as coach. In 2004 he returned to Portugal, this time to play for FC Porto where he has remained since and has become one of the team’s symbols.
Ricardo who is 1,73 m tall, has become one of the most exciting players to watch in the world of football. He plays as an attacking midfielder and even though he is essentially a right-footed player he can play on both the left and right side of the field thanks to his magnificent ball control and to the fact that he kicks and crosses the ball with pinpoint accuracy using both the (normal) inside and the outside of his right foot.
His trademark is without doubt the use of the outside of his right foot, where he has no comparison and has scored some memorable goals in the history of Soccer.
He made his debut for the Portugal National team in June 2003 against Bolivia and recently has been used a little more frequently by Luiz Felipe Scolari, the Portugal National Team coach, but not enough in the opinion of many Portuguese supporters.
Both Ricardo and Cristiano Ronaldo form an impressive attacking duo that any coach in the world would love to have. The Portuguese fans love to see them both in the Portugal squad because of their speed and dribbling abilities.
This year many of the top European teams like Chelsea, Real Madrid, Altlético Madrid, Liverpool, Lyon and Bayern Munich have expressed interest in signing him up, but till now (Oct. 2007) Ricardo Quaresma still remains in Portugal much to the delight of the Portuguese and FC Porto fans.
