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 ...

who played mostly as a

central defender In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

, currently

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

of the Kuwait national team. Over 13 seasons, he amassed

Primeira Liga The Primeira Liga (; English: Premier League, also written as Liga Portugal 1), also known as Liga Portugal Bwin for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga Portugal ...

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

S.C. Beira-Mar Sport Clube 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 Aveiro FA First Division 2018/19 ...

and

Tondela Tondela () is a municipality in the central 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 Carvalho (1876–1951) wrote of the munic ...

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

Club career

Born in

Silves Silves may refer to : Europe * Silves, Portugal, municipality and former bishopric in Algarve, southern Portugal ** Silves (parish), a civil parish in the municipality of Silves ** Castle of Silves, a medieval castle in civil parish of Silves * ...

Algarve The Algarve (, , ; from ) is the southernmost NUTS II region of continental Portugal. It has an area of with 467,495 permanent inhabitants and incorporates 16 municipalities ( ''concelhos'' or ''municípios'' in Portuguese). The region has its ...

, Bento first represented

S.L. Benfica Sport Lisboa e 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'', B ...

, but would gain national recognition with

Boavista FC Boavista Futebol Clube, commonly known as Boavista (), is a Portuguese sports club from the city of Porto. Founded on 1 August 1903 by British entrepreneurs and Portuguese textile workers (thus the "FC" being appended – the British way as oppos ...

. Already relocated as a

defensive midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

, he helped them to their only

championship in the 2000–01 season, adding the 1997

Taça de Portugal The Taça de Portugal (; "Cup of 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 Placard since the 2015–16 seas ...

. After three years at

Sporting CP Sporting Clube de Portugal, founded Sporting Club de Portugal (), otherwise referred to as Sporting CP, often known abroad as Sporting Lisbon , is a Portuguese professional sports club based in Lisbon. It is best known for the professional fo ...

, battling with namesake

Paulo Bento Paulo Jorge Gomes Bento (; born 20 June 1969) is a Portuguese football manager and former player. A defensive midfielder with tackling ability and workrate as his main assets, he played for two of the major three teams in his country, amassi ...

for first-choice status and winning another league title in

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains independence from Indonesia and ...

, 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 representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. ...

after taking the place of

Leonardo Jardim José Leonardo Nunes Alves Sousa Jardim (; born 1 August 1974) is a Portuguese football manager, currently in charge of Emirati club Shabab Al Ahli. He started working at the professional level at the age of 35, initially with Camacha and Chav ...

, 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 ( ar, النادي الأهلي السعودي) is a Saudi Arabian professional football club based in Jeddah, that competes in the second division of Saudi Arabian football, following their relegation from the Sa ...

, Bento signed as manager of

Bangkok United F.C. True Bangkok United Football Club ( th, สโมสรฟุตบอลทรู แบงค็อก ยูไนเต็ด) is a Thai professional Football team, football club based in Pathum Thani province. Formerly known as Bangkok U ...

in January 2014. He left early on in the

Thai Premier League The Thai League 1 ( th, ไทยลีก 1), often referred to as T1, is the top level of the Thai football league system. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with Thai League 2. Seasons run from Augu ...

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 tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

. 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 football player and manager. A midfielder, he excelled in the late 80s and early 90s with Benfica, to where he arrived from the lower le ...

at 16th-placed

C.D. Tondela Clube Desportivo de Tondela () is a Portuguese professional football club that plays in Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese football. They are based in the town of Tondela, located in Viseu District, and play in the Estádio João Cardos ...

on a deal to the end of

the campaign Campaign or The Campaign may refer to: Types of campaigns * Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed *Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme *Bli ...

. 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 ea ...

six times for

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, In recognized minority languages of Portugal: :* mwl, República Pertuesa is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula, in Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Macaronesian ...

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

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wit ...

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 qualifi ...

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

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

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

Olympic football Football at the Summer Olympics, referred to as the Olympic Football Tournament, 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 W ...

, helping the national side to finish fourth at the 1996 Summer Olympics in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,71 ...

. 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 FIFA ...

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 footballer who played mainly as a defensive midfielder, currently manager of the Kuwait under-23 team. A member of the dubbed Golden Generation who hailed from the ...

left the

Portuguese Football Federation The Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) ( pt, Federação Portuguesa de Futebol; ) is the governing body of football in Portugal. The federation was formed in 1914 as Portuguese Football Union (UPF) by the three existing regional associations ...

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 football match played since 1979 between the winners of the Portuguese League (Primeira Liga) and Portuguese ...

runner-up:

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the ...

Boavista *

: 2000–01 *

: 1996–97 *Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira:

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment building in Amsterdam after two of its engines ...

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

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 ...

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bento, Rui 1972 births Living people People from Silves, Portugal Sportspeople from Faro District Portuguese footballers Association football defenders Association football midfielders Association football utility players Primeira Liga players S.L. Benfica footballers Boavista F.C. players Sporting CP footballers Portugal youth international footballers Portugal under-21 international footballers Portugal international footballers Olympic footballers of 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