Messias Júlio Timula (18 December 1948 – 18 February 1998), known simply as Messias, was a Portuguese

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

central defender In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

Club career

Born in

Maputo Maputo () is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Mozambique. Located near the southern end of the country, it is within of the borders with Eswatini and South Africa. The city has a population of 1,088,449 (as of 2017) distributed ov ...

Portuguese Mozambique Portuguese Mozambique () or Portuguese East Africa () were the common terms by which Mozambique was designated during the period in which it was a Portuguese Empire, Portuguese overseas province. Portuguese Mozambique originally constituted a str ...

, Messias arrived at

S.L. Benfica (), commonly known as Benfica, is a professional football club based in Lisbon, Portugal, that competes in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese football. Founded on 28 February 1904, as ''Sport Lisboa'', Benfica is one of the " ...

in 1967 as a 19-year old. Facing competition from Raúl Machado, Zeca and

Humberto Coelho Humberto Manuel de Jesus Coelho (born 20 April 1950) is a Portuguese retired footballer and manager. In a career mainly associated with Benfica, the central defender also competed professionally in France and the United States, during a 16- ...

, he spent his first two seasons in the

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players who are under contract to a club but who do not regularly play in matches for the club's primary team. Reserve teams usually include players who are part of the larger first-team squad but ...

. On 21 November 1969, Messias made his first appearance for the main squad, replacing Coelho in the 53rd minute of a 1–0 away loss to

Vitória de Setúbal 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 would play two more games in the same

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 ...

– a

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by top-division European clubs. The competition begins with a round robi ...

match against

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...

on 26 November and a league one with U.F.C.I. Tomar on 1 December. After remaining a backup player in 1970–71, Messias had his breakthrough the following campaign, playing 26 matches in all competitions and winning 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 ...

title, the

Portuguese Cup Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

and reaching the semi-finals of the

. Due to strong competition from

Amândio Malta da Silva Amândio José Malta da Silva (born 19 February 1943) is a Portuguese retired footballer who played as a right back or a central defender. Club career Born Benguela, Portuguese Angola, Malta da Silva was discovered by S.L. Benfica's scouting tea ...

and Rui Rodrigues, his playing time in

1972–73 Year 197 ( CXCVII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Magius and Rufinus (or, less frequently, year 950 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 197 for this y ...

and 1973–74 dropped; after his competition either left or lost influence, he regained a pivotal role alongside Coelho and won three more league titles, the first two as starter. In 1977, after 123 overall appearances, Messias left Benfica and followed many teammates to the

North American Soccer League The North American Soccer League (NASL) was the top-level major professional soccer league in the United States and Canada that operated from 1968 to 1984. It is considered the first soccer league to be successful on a national scale in the ...

. He took part in 15 games during his spell, reaching the Conference Championship final. He then returned to Portugal, playing for G.D. Riopele in their debut season in the top flight and retiring immediately after.

International career

Messias received his first call up to the Portugal national team when they were selected to appear in the

Brazil Independence Cup The Brazil Independence Cup was an international association football, football tournament held in Brazil, from 11 June to 9 July 1972, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Brazilian Declaration of Independence. It was called the ''Minicopa' ...

in 1972. After solid performances at club level, he made his debut on 18 June of that year against

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

, playing all of the remaining games in the tournament including the lost final to

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

, which would be his last

cap A cap is a flat headgear, usually with a visor. Caps have crowns that fit very close to the head. They made their first appearance as early as 3200 BC. The origin of the word "cap" comes from the Old French word "chapeau" which means "head co ...

Honours

Benfica *

: 1970–71, 1971–72,

, 1974–75, 1975–76, 1976–77 *

Taça de Portugal The Taça de Portugal (; ) is an annual association football competition and the premier knockout tournament in Portuguese football. For sponsorship reasons, it has been known as Taça de Portugal Generali Tranquilidade since the 2024–25 seaso ...

: 1971–72

References

General * Specific

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Messias Timula 1948 births 1998 deaths Portuguese people of Mozambican descent 20th-century Portuguese sportsmen Mozambican men's footballers Portuguese men's footballers Footballers from Maputo Men's association football defenders Primeira Liga players S.L. Benfica footballers G.D. Riopele players North American Soccer League (1968–1984) players Rochester Lancers (1967–1980) players Portugal men's international footballers Portuguese expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's soccer players in the United States Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in the United States