Luís Boa Morte
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| Luís Boa Morte | ||
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| Personal information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Luís Boa Morte Pereira | |
| Date of birth | August 4, 1977 | |
| Place of birth | Lisbon, Portugal | |
| Height | 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in) | |
| Playing position | Left winger | |
| Club information | ||
| Current club | West Ham United | |
| Number | 34 | |
| Youth clubs | ||
| 1994–1996 | Sporting CP | |
| Senior clubs1 | ||
| Years | Club | App (Gls)* |
| 1997–1999 1999–2001 2000–2001 2001–2007 2007– |
Arsenal Southampton → Fulham (loan) Fulham West Ham United |
25 (0) 14 (1) 39 (18) 166 (26) 41 (1) |
| National team2 | ||
| 2001– | Portugal | 25 (2) |
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1 Senior club appearances and goals |
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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. Amongst fans, he is principally known as 'Boa', 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].
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[edit] Club career
[edit] Sporting C.P
He started his professional career in August 1996 with Sporting, spending time on loan to junior club Sporting Clube 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 August 23, 1997 as a substitute at Southampton. During Arsenal's double winning 1997-98 season he made 15 league appearances, mostly as substitute and four 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 December 9, 1998, when he scored Arsenal's third goal. His final appearance for Arsenal was as a second half substitute away to Sunderland on August 14, 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 September 11, 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 three 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 one goal - a thundering left foot drive at Watford in a 2-3 defeat on December 28, 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 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 two seasons in the Premiership, he was not able to replicate his form of the Championship winning season, scoring only three goals, although his form returned to some extent in 2003-04, since when he has averaged eight 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 March 19, 2006 at Craven Cottage.
He became popular amongst Fulham's supporters[who?] whilst he played for them, for his impassioned, never-say-die and sometimes aggressive style of play - although this often led to problems with referees.[citation needed] He remains to this day a favourite amongst supporters[who?] for the service he gave to the club. Even though his form dipped towards the end of his Fulham career he will be remembered as a legend of his generation due to the excitement he gave to the Craven Cottage crowd on a regular basis.[citation needed]
[edit] West Ham United
Boa Morte signed for West Ham United in January 2007 on a three and a half year contract for an undisclosed fee, which is believed to be around £5 million.[2]
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 former team Fulham. On April 28, 2007, he scored his first goal for the club in an important 0-3 win against Wigan Athletic at the JJB Stadium. [3] Many fans[who?] believe his goal, the first in that match, to be one of the most important in that season, as they went on to survive relegation.
[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 cap in April 2001 against France.
Despite an impressive season at club level, Boa Morte was disappointed to be left out of his country’s squad for the 2004 European Championships on home soil. However, the winger was part of Portugal’s World Cup 2006 campaign in Germany, playing in the 2-1 victory over Mexico on 21 June 2006.
Boa Morte currently has 25 caps and 2 goals for Portugal.
[edit] Honours
- FA Premier League Champions 1997-98
- FA Cup Winners 1998
- Football League Championship Champions 2000-01
[edit] References
- ^ Brand, Russell. "Death is beautiful but Wright-Phillips means life", The Guardian, 6-1-2007.
- ^ "Hammers snare Boa Morte", Football, 2007-01-05. Retrieved on 2007-08-22.
- ^ Tactical Formation. Football-Lineups.com. Retrieved on January 20, 2007.
[edit] External links
- Luís Boa Morte career stats at Soccerbase
- Photos and stats at sporting-heroes.net
- Feature on Fulham club website
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