Luís Boa Morte

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Personal information
Luís Boa Morte
Full name	Luís Boa Morte Pereira
Date of birth	August 4, 1977 (age 29)
Place of birth	Lisbon, Portugal
Height	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Nickname	Boa
Playing position	Left winger
Club information
Current club	West Ham United
Number	13
Youth clubs
1996–1997	Sporting
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1997–1999 1999–2001 2000–2001 2001–2007 2007–present	Arsenal Southampton → Fulham (loan) Fulham West Ham United	025 0(0) 014 0(1) 039 (18) 166 (26) 006 0(0)
National team²
2001–present	Portugal	025 0(2)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 05:27, 21 March 2007 (UTC). ² National team caps and goals correct as of 17:45, 23 December 2006 (UTC). * Appearances (Goals)

Luís Boa Morte, pron. IPA: [lu'iʃ 'boɐ 'mɔɾt(ɨ)], (born Lisbon August 4, 1977) is a Portuguese footballer, currently playing for West Ham United, an English club in the FA Premier League.

He mainly plays as an attacking wide forward although he has played as a conventional centre forward in the past. His trickery and abundance of skills makes him a lethal attacking midfielder, and made him one of Fulham's most prized assets. Amongst fans, he is principally known as 'Boa', 'The Bouncy Kangaroo'^{[citation needed]} and the 'The Dead Snake', (due to the general mistake of translating his surname into English) . His surname in fact in Portuguese means good death ^[1].

1 Club career
2 International career
3 Honours
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Club career

[edit] Sporting (Lisbon)

He started his professional career in August 1996 with Sporting, spending time on loan to junior club Lourinhanense.

[edit] Arsenal

Boa Morte made his debut in English football for Arsenal when he became one of Arsène Wenger's first signings for the club, joining on a fee of £1.75 million.

He made his debut on 23 August 1997 as a substitute at Southampton. During Arsenal's double winning 1997-98 season he made 15 league appearances, mostly as substitute and 4 in the FA cup, although he did not appear in the final itself.

The following season he was a fairly regular squad member, usually as substitute in the early part of the season, with a few European Cup appearances, including against Panathinaikos on 9 December 1998, when he scored Arsenal's third goal. His final appearance for Arsenal was as a second half substitute away to Sunderland on 14 August 1999.

[edit] Southampton

After failing to break into Arsenal's first-team on a regular basis, in August 1999 Boa Morte was signed for Southampton by Dave Jones for a fee of around £500,000, with further payments to be based on appearances.

In only his second appearance for Southampton, away to Middlesbrough on 11 September 1999, he was sent off for handling the ball in the goalmouth in the 77th minute, with Paul Gascoigne scoring the resultant penalty as 'Boro went on to win 3-2.

In January 2000, Dave Jones was replaced as manager by Glenn Hoddle, who dropped Boa Morte from the team. After Hoddle's appointment, Boa Morte only made 3 further appearances and in July 2000, he had a trial at Fulham following which he moved to Craven Cottage, initially on a season long loan. As a result the first instalment on the fee due to Arsenal was never paid.

In his season at The Dell, he made a total of 17 appearances, mostly as substitute, with 1 goal, a thundering left foot drive at Watford in a 2-3 defeat on 28 December 1999.

[edit] Fulham

In his first season at Fulham, he helped Jean Tigana win the 2000-01 Division 1 making 39 league appearances, scoring 18 goals as Fulham ran away with the Championship with a total of 101 points.

His superb form and contributions to the Championship winning season, resulted in him being signed permanently in June 2001 (on a fee of £1.7 million paid to Arsenal), despite Southampton's attempts to bring him back after the expiry of the loan arrangement.

In Fulham's first 2 seasons in the Premiership he was not able to replicate his superb form of the Championship winning season, scoring only 3 goals, although his form returned to some extent in 2003-04, since when he has averaged 8 goals per season.

In August 2005 he was chased strongly by Newcastle United but pledged his future to Fulham and was made team captain. His crowning moment in a Fulham shirt was when he scored the only goal in the 1-0 win over Chelsea in the West London derby on 19 March 2006 at Craven Cottage.

He became a favourite amongst Fulham's supporters whilst he played for them, for his impassioned, never-say-die and sometimes aggressive style of play - although this has lead to problems with referees.

[edit] West Ham United

On January 5, 2007 he signed for West Ham United on a 3 and a half year contract for an undisclosed fee, which is believed to be around £5 million.

He played his first game for the Hammers in an FA Cup tie against Brighton, setting up two goals and on January 13, 2007 in the Premier League against old team Fulham.^[2]

[edit] International career

Due to a number of impressive performances for Fulham, Boa Morte was called up to the Portuguese national team, winning his first full cap in June 2001 against Republic of Ireland.

He was also selected for the World Cup 2006, making one appearance in a 2-1 victory over Mexico on 21 June 2006.

Boa Morte currently has 25 caps and 2 goals for Portugal.

[edit] Honours

Arsenal

FA Premier League Champions 1997-98
FA Cup Winners 1998

Fulham

Football League Championship Champions 2000-01

[edit] References

^ Brand, Russell. "Death is beautiful but Wright-Phillips means life", The Guardian, 6-1-2007.
^ Tactical Formation. Football-Lineups.com. Retrieved on January 20, 2007.

[edit] External links

Photos and stats at sporting-heroes.net
Luís Boa Morte career stats at Soccerbase
Feature on Fulham club website

	Portugal squad - 2006 FIFA World Cup Fourth Place
1 Ricardo \| 2 P. Ferreira \| 3 Caneira \| 4 R. Costa \| 5 Meira \| 6 Costinha \| 7 Figo \| 8 Petit \| 9 Pauleta \| 10 H. Viana \| 11 Simão \| 12 Quim \| 13 Miguel \| 14 N. Valente \| 15 Boa Morte \| 16 R. Carvalho \| 17 C. Ronaldo \| 18 Maniche \| 19 Tiago \| 20 Deco \| 21 Nuno Gomes \| 22 P. Santos \| 23 H. Postiga \| Coach: Scolari