Rui Fernando da Silva Calapez Pereira Bento (born 14 January 1972) 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 mostly 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 ...

, currently a

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

. Over 13 seasons, he amassed

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 ...

totals of 321 matches and five goals, representing mainly Boavista (nine years). He managed

S.C. Beira-Mar Sport Clube Beira-Mar (), commonly known as Beira-Mar, is a Portuguese sports club based in Aveiro, Portugal. Its football team currently plays in the Campeonato de Portugal, the fourth national level, having gained promotion by winning the Ave ...

and

Tondela Tondela () is a concelho, municipality in the Centro, Portugal, central Portugal, Portuguese subregion of Dão-Lafões. The population in 2011 was 28,946, in an area of 371.22 km2. History Local writer and intellectual Amadeu Ferraz de Carv ...

in the top flight, and spent several years coaching Portugal's youth teams.

Club career

Born in Silves,

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 ...

, Bento first represented

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 " ...

, but would gain national recognition with

Boavista FC Boavista Futebol Clube (), commonly known as Boavista, is a Portuguese professional sports club from the of Porto that competes in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese football, at the Estádio do Bessa. It is one of the oldest clubs ...

. Already relocated as a

defensive midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. ...

, he helped them to their only

championship in the 2000–01 season, adding the 1997

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 ...

. After three years at

Sporting CP Sporting Clube de Portugal (), otherwise referred to as Sporting CP or simply Sporting (particularly within Portugal), or as Sporting Lisbon in other countries,

, battling with namesake

Paulo Bento Paulo Jorge Gomes Bento (; born 20 June 1969) is a Portuguese Association football, football Manager (association football), manager and former player. A Midfielder#Defensive midfielder, defensive midfielder with tackling ability and workrate ...

for first-choice status and winning another league title in

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

, Bento retired from playing at the age of 32, and started coaching at lowly Académico de Viseu FC. In summer 2008 he returned to Boavista with the club now in the

second division In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...

, and the side eventually suffered a second consecutive relegation. Bento was appointed at

midway through the

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

after taking the place of

Leonardo Jardim José Leonardo Nunes Alves Sousa Jardim (; born 1 August 1974) is a Portuguese football manager. He is the current head coach of Brazilian club Cruzeiro. He started working at the professional level at the age of 35, initially with Camacha an ...

, only winning twice in nine top-division games until the end of the campaign (two draws and five losses) but still leading the Aveiro team away from the relegation zone. He resigned on 26 February 2012. After some time managing the under-23 side of

Al Ahli Saudi FC Al-Ahli Saudi Football Club (), commonly known as Al-Ahli, is a Saudi professional football club based in Jeddah. It competes in the Saudi Pro League, the top tier of Saudi football. Al-Ahli has won 52 official championships, the third mos ...

, Bento signed as manager of

Bangkok United F.C. True Bangkok United Football Club () is a professional football club based in Pathum Thani province, Thailand. Known as Bangkok University Football Club until 2009, the club was relegated from the 2010 Thai Premier League only four years after ...

in January 2014. He left early on in the

Thai Premier League The Thai League (, pronounced as ') or Thai League 1 (, pronounced as '), often referred to as T1, is the highest level of the Thai football league system. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with Thai L ...

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 ...

. On 6 October 2015, Bento returned to Portugal's top flight, succeeding

Vítor Paneira Vítor Manuel da Costa Araújo (born 16 February 1966), known as Vítor Paneira, is a Portuguese former professional footballer who played as a right midfielder, currently a manager. He excelled in the late 80s and early 90s with Benfica, to ...

at 16th-placed C.D. Tondela on a deal to the end of the campaign. He left by mutual accord on 8 December after earning a solitary point from five matches, placing the club in last position.

International career

Bento was

capped In sport, a cap is a player's appearance in a game at international level. The term dates from the practice in the United Kingdom of awarding a cap to every player in an international match of rugby football and association football. In the e ...

six times for

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

. His first game took place at 20 November 1991 in a 1–0 win over

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 ...

for the

UEFA Euro 1992 The 1992 UEFA European Football Championship was hosted by Sweden between 10 and 26 June 1992. It was the ninth UEFA European Championship, which is held every four years and supported by UEFA. Denmark won the 1992 championship, having been inv ...

qualifiers, and his last was a 4–0 defeat to

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

on 25 April 2001, in a friendly. Bento also played

Olympic football Association football has been included in every Summer Olympic Games as a men's competition sport, except 1896 (the inaugural Games) and 1932 (in an attempt to promote the new FIFA World Cup tournament). Women's football was added to the offic ...

, helping the national side to finish fourth at the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

. Previously, he was a starter for the

1991 FIFA World Youth Championship The 1991 FIFA World Youth Championship was the eighth staging of the FIFA World Youth Championship, an international football competition organized by FIFA for men's youth national teams, and the eighth since it was established in 1977 as the FIF ...

winners, in a competition played on

home soil "Home Soil" is the eighteenth episode of the American science fiction television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation''. It first aired in broadcast syndication on February 22, 1988. Robert Sabaroff, Karl Geurs and Ralph Sanchez developed ...

. In July 2009, Bento was named the Portugal under-17 manager. He and

Emílio Peixe Emílio Manuel Delgado Peixe (born 16 January 1973) is a Portuguese former Association football, footballer who played mainly as a defensive midfielder, currently Manager (association football), manager of the Kuwait national under-23 football te ...

left the

Portuguese Football Federation The Portuguese Football Federation ( , FPF) is the governing body of Association football, football in Portugal. The federation was formed in 1914 as Portuguese Football Union (, UPF) by the three existing regional associations of Lisbon Footbal ...

set-up in August 2022, to take the helm at Kuwait's

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

and Olympic teams, respectively.

Honours

Benfica *

Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira The Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira (; English: Cândido de Oliveira Super Cup, or simply Portuguese Super Cup) is an annual Portuguese association football, football match played since 1979 between the winners of the top-tier league (Primeira L ...

runner-up:

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

Boavista *

: 2000–01 *

: 1996–97 *Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira:

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

Sporting CP *Primeira Liga: 2001–02 *Taça de Portugal: 2001–02 Portugal U-20 *

FIFA U-20 World Cup The FIFA U-20 World Cup is the biennial football world championship tournament for FIFA members' men's national teams with players under the age of 20. The competition has been staged every two years since the inaugural tournament in 1977 when i ...

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bento, Rui 1972 births Living people People from Silves, Portugal Portuguese men's footballers Footballers from Faro District Men's association football central defenders Men's association football midfielders Men's association football utility players Primeira Liga players S.L. Benfica footballers Boavista F.C. players Sporting CP footballers Portugal men's youth international footballers Portugal men's under-21 international footballers Portugal men's international footballers Olympic footballers for Portugal Footballers at the 1996 Summer Olympics Portuguese football managers Primeira Liga managers Liga Portugal 2 managers Académico de Viseu F.C. managers F.C. Penafiel managers Boavista F.C. managers S.C. Beira-Mar managers C.D. Tondela managers Kuwait national football team managers Portuguese expatriate football managers Expatriate football managers in Thailand Expatriate football managers in Kuwait Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Thailand Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Kuwait