José Águas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

José Pinto Carvalho dos Santos Águas (pron. IPA: [ʒu'zɛ 'agwɐʃ]) (9 November 1930 – 2003) was a Portuguese footballer born in Lobito, Angola, from a white colonial family.

He started his footballing career in a local team, Lusitano do Lobito, before moving to SL Benfica in 1950, where he played until 1963, and gained an almost legendary status.

With Benfica, he won the Superliga five times (1954/55, 1956/57, 1959/60, 1960/61, 1962/63) and the Cup of Portugal seven times (consecutively from 1950/51 to 1961/62). He was also the league top scorer five times. He saw great success in European competitions as well, winning the European Cup for two consecutive years, in 1961 (a 3-2 win in the final against FC Barcelona) and the next season (5-3 against Real Madrid). Águas was the captain of his side on both these occasions. Benfica failed to complete a hat-trick of wins when they were beaten 1-2 by AC Milan in the 1963 final, but this time Águas didn´t play.

Making his debut on 23 November 1952 in a 1-1 draw with Austria, Águas represented Portugal 25 times, scoring 11 goals in his career. He played his last match for the national team on 17 May 1962, a 1-2 defeat to Belgium. However, he could never represent Portugal in a major competition.

After leaving Benfica, he played for one more season for FK Austria, before retiring in 1964, aged 33.

His son, Rui Águas, has also played for Benfica and the Portuguese national team.