Fábio Alexandre Duarte Felício (born 2 May 1982) is a Portuguese former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played as a

midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in t ...

Club career

Born in Faro,

Algarve The Algarve (, , ) is the southernmost NUTS statistical regions of Portugal, NUTS II region of continental Portugal. It has an area of with 467,495 permanent inhabitants and incorporates 16 municipalities (concelho, ''concelhos'' or ''município ...

, Felício made his professional debut with hometown club

S.C. Farense Sporting Clube Farense, simply known as Farense, is a Portuguese professional association football, football club based in Faro, Portugal, Faro in the Faro District, district of the same name and the region of Algarve. Founded in 1910, the club ha ...

, appearing in the

Primeira Liga The Primeira Liga (), also known as Liga Portugal Betclic for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Portugal and the highest level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga ...

not yet aged 18. He continued to develop at neighbours

S.C. Olhanense Sporting Clube Olhanense (), commonly known as Olhanense, is a Portuguese sports club from Olhão, Algarve. Its Association football, football team was founded on 27 April 1912 and currently plays in the Algarve Football Association Portuguese Di ...

, in the lower leagues. After a single

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...

with

Académica de Coimbra The Associação Académica de Coimbra (AAC) is the students' union of the University of Coimbra (UC). Founded in Coimbra on November 3, 1887, it is the oldest students' union in Portugal. It is also the biggest Portuguese students' union belongin ...

, again in the top division, Felício established himself at fellow league side

U.D. Leiria União Desportiva de Leiria (), commonly known as União de Leiria, is a Portuguese professional football club based in Leiria. Founded on 6 June 1966, it currently plays in the Liga Portugal 2, holding home matches at Estádio Dr. Magalhães Pe ...

, helping them qualify twice for the

UEFA Intertoto Cup The UEFA Intertoto Cup (from , "between" and , " betting pool"),Most precisely, from ( football pool); cf. originally called the International Football Cup, was a summer football competition between European clubs. The competition was dis ...

. His solid displays attracted the attention of Spain's

Real Sociedad Real Sociedad de Fútbol, more commonly referred to as Real Sociedad ( ; ''Royal Society'') in English, and Erreala or Reala in Basque language, Basque, is a Spanish professional sports club in the city of San Sebastián, Donostia / San Sebastián, ...

, but he did not settle at all at his new team, and left in the following

transfer window In association football, a transfer window is the period during the year in which a football club, club can add players to their squad who were previously under contract with another club. Such a Transfer (association football), transfer is comp ...

. Before the start of the 2007 season, Felício signed with

Russian Premier League The Russian Premier League (RPL; , ''Rossiyskaya premyer-liga''; РПЛ), also written as Russian Premier Liga, is a professional association football league in Russia and the highest level of the Russian football league system. It was establis ...

club

FC Rubin Kazan FC Rubin Kazan (; ) is a Russian professional association football, football club based in the city of Kazan. They play in the Russian Premier League. Founded 1958 in Russia, in 1958, Rubin played its first-ever top flight season in 2003 Russia ...

. He made his debut on 4 March, appearing as a starter in a 1–3 defeat against

FC Rostov FC Rostov () is a Russian professionalism in association football, professional football club based in Rostov-on-Don. The club competes in the Russian Premier League, playing their home matches at the Rostov Arena. History Soviet era (1930-199 ...

in the Russian Cup, but lost his place in the first team very soon, playing just two league games since the fifth round and eventually went on to serve two consecutive loans, one of them back in his country with

C.S. Marítimo Club Sport Marítimo MH M (), commonly known as Marítimo or Marítimo da Madeira, is a Portuguese professional sports club based in the city of Funchal, on the island of Madeira. Established in 1910, Marítimo is best known for its football team ...

; in an interview, Rubin manager Kurban Berdyyev described him as "a heaven-born footballer, but a coward, not a fighter", criticizing him for his inability to demonstrate his talent during games. Felício spent the 2008–09 season in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

playing for Asteras Tripoli FC, on loan. In mid-December 2009 he agreed on a return to Portugal, signing with

Vitória de Guimarães Vitoria or Vitória may refer to: People * Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1483–1546), a Spanish Renaissance theologian * Alberto Vitoria (1956–2010), Spanish footballer * Rui Vitória (born 1970), Portuguese retired footballer * Sofia Vitória (bor ...

. He is the father of Afonso Cavaco Felicio, a 13 years old footballer who plays the Attacking Midfielder position at FC Porto.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Felicio, Fabio 1982 births Living people Portuguese men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Primeira Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players Segunda Divisão players S.C. Farense players S.C. Olhanense players Académica de Coimbra (football) players U.D. Leiria players C.S. Marítimo players Vitória S.C. players Rio Ave F.C. players Portimonense S.C. players Louletano D.C. players S.R. Almancilense players La Liga players Real Sociedad footballers Russian Premier League players FC Rubin Kazan players Super League Greece players Asteras Tripolis F.C. players Portugal men's youth international footballers Portuguese expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Spain Expatriate men's footballers in Russia Expatriate men's footballers in Greece Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Spain Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Russia Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Greece Footballers from Faro, Portugal 21st-century Portuguese sportsmen