- Tamagnini Nené
Tamagnini Manuel Gomes Baptista, used nickname Nené (pron. IPA2|nɛ.'nɛ) (born
November 20 ,1949 inLeça da Palmeira ) was a Portuguese footballer.Nené played as a winger or free roaming attacker for
Sport Lisboa e Benfica throughout his career, from 1966, making his debut for the main team, in 1967/68, until his retirement in 1986 at the age of 36.Nené was the
Portuguese Footballer of the Year in 1971 and also runner up in 1972, which was achieved whilst competing with his team mateEusebio . [ [http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/portpoy.html Portugal - Footballer of the Year] ]He is the second
Sport Lisboa e Benfica top scorer in European competitions with 28 goals in 75 appearances. [ [http://www.rsssf.com/players/nene-in-ec.html "Nene" Tamagnini Manuel Gomes Baptista - Matches in European Cups] ] . He played at theUEFA Cup finals 1983, which were lost toRSC Anderlecht .As a player, he became one of the living symbols of Benfica, winning 11 national championships.
Domestic Honours
* 11 x
Portuguese Liga winner: 1967/68, 1968/69, 1970/71, 1971/72, 1972/73, 1974/75, 1975/76, 1976/77, 1980/81, 1982/83 and 1983/84.
* 8 xCup of Portugal winner: 1968/69 1969/70 1971/72 1979/80 1980/81 1982/83 1984/85 and 1985/86.
* 2 xSuperCup Cândido de Oliveira winner: 1980 and 1985.He was also the top scorer of the
Portuguese Liga twice. [ [http://www.sportsrecords.co.uk/soccer/soccer135x.htm Top Goal Scorers - Portugal] ]In 1972-73, Nené was a star player for
Sport Lisboa e Benfica when they became the only ever club in Portugal to last a whole season without defeat and won 28 matches - 23 consecutively - out of 30, and drew two. The team scored 101 goals, breaking 100 only for the second time in their history.National Team
Nené is currently tenth in the all-time appearance records for Portugal with 66 caps. [ [http://www.rsssf.com/miscellaneous/port-recintlp.html Portugal - Record International Players] ] . He is also 7th in the all-time goalscoring records too with 22 goals. He has the 3rd best goals to games ratio of the Portuguese national team with only
Eusebio andNuno Gomes (also Benfica players) having better.In the Portuguese national team he debuted at
April 21 ,1971 in the European Championship qualifier against Scotland (2-0).After his last match at the European championship finals on 23 June 1984 he had accumulated 66 matches for Portugal, scoring 22 goals, a caps record that would last until 1994, when was broken by
João Domingos Pinto .He scored the winning goal against
Romania (1-0) onJune 20 ,1984 , becoming the oldest player to score in the European championship finals at age age in years and days|1949|11|20|1984|6|20. His record was broken only 24 years later, whenIvica Vastic scored in the 2008 European championship finals against Poland. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/euro_2008/7363070.stm Austria 1-1 Poland] ] His goal led Portugal to the semi-finals versus hostsFrance , where he played as a substitute, but could not avert the defeat (2-3) in extra-time.After ending his career, he became a youth coach with Sport Lisboa e Benfica.
References
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