Rui Jorge Monteiro Mendes (born 10 November 1999) is a Portuguese professional

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 plays as a

right winger 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 ...

for Emmen in the .

Early life

From Gondor, in

Amarante, Portugal Amarante () is a municipality and municipal seat in the Tâmega e Sousa subregion in northern Portugal. The population in 2011 was 56,264, in an area of . The city itself had a population of 11,261 in 2001. The city has been part of the UNESCO Cr ...

, Mendes moved at the age of seven to

Dissen, Lower Saxony Dissen am Teutoburger Wald is an old charactered town in the district of Osnabrück, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Teutoburg Forest, approximately 20 km southeast of Osnabrück. Geography Dissen is located on the southern ...

with his family. He was in the youth academy of

Arminia Bielefeld DSC Arminia Bielefeld (; full name: ; commonly known as Arminia Bielefeld (), also known as ''Die Arminen'' or ''Die Blauen'' ), or just Arminia (), is a German sports club from Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia. Arminia offers the sports of ...

but was not offered a professional contract. Instead he joined up with

1899 Hoffenheim Turn- und Sportgemeinschaft 1899 Hoffenheim e.V., or simply TSG 1899 Hoffenheim or just Hoffenheim () is a German professional football club based in Hoffenheim, a village of Sinsheim municipality, Baden-Württemberg. Originally founded in 1899 ...

aged 18 on a two-year contract. He trained with the first team under

Julian Nagelsmann Julian Nagelsmann (born 23 July 1987) is a German professional football manager and former football player who is the head coach of Bayern Munich. Prior to managing Bayern, he managed 1899 Hoffenheim and RB Leipzig. Known for his versatility w ...

and played for their second team before ultimately leaving on a free transfer in 2021.

Career

During a trial game for

FC Emmen FC Emmen is a Dutch football club based in Emmen, Drenthe. They play in the Eredivisie, the top tier of Dutch football, after winning the 2021–22 Eerste Divisie title. Founded in 1925, the club entered the professional Eerste Divisie in 1985. ...

Mendes scored twice against

Heracles Almelo Heracles Almelo is a Dutch professional football club based in Almelo, founded in 1903. The club has won the Dutch national title twice, in 1927 and 1941. Heracles won the Eerste Divisie title during the 2004–05 season, gaining promotion to t ...

to earn a contract. In the 2021-22 season, Mendes was instrumental in FC Emmen’s championship winning season in the

Eerste Divisie The Eerste Divisie (, en, First Division) is the second-highest tier of football in the Netherlands. It is linked with the top-level Eredivisie and with the third-level Tweede Divisie via promotion/relegation systems. It is also known as th ...

. Mendes scored in eight consecutive games, just one short of the all time FC Emmen record from the 2001–02 season, when

Paul Weerman Paul Weerman (born 21 January 1977) is a Dutch association football, football manager and former player. A forward (association football), forward, he was top scorer of the Eerste Divisie for FC Emmen, scoring 14 goals in the 2001–02 season. W ...

scored in nine consecutive matches.

Honours

Emmen *

: 2021–22

References

1999 births Living people Portuguese men's footballers Men's association football wingers Eredivisie players Eerste Divisie players TSG 1899 Hoffenheim II players Arminia Bielefeld players FC Emmen players Portuguese expatriate men's footballers Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in Germany Expatriate men's footballers in Germany Portuguese expatriate sportspeople in the Netherlands Expatriate men's footballers in the Netherlands {{Portugal-footy-bio-stub