Rui de Gouveia Pinto Rodrigues (17 May 1943 – 23 February 2024) was a Portuguese

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

player and manager. He played as a

centre-back 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 ...

. Over the course of 17 seasons, Rodrigues amassed Portuguese top division totals of 338 games and 21 goals, representing Académica de Coimbra (two spells),

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 " ...

and

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 ...

. Rodrigues died on 23 February 2024, at the age of 80.

Club career

Born in

Lourenço Marques 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 ...

, Rodrigues started at Grupo Desportivo 1º de Maio, after an unsuccessful try-out at Ferroviário de Lourenço Marques. In 1962, he travelled to Portugal for a training session with the under-18 national team. Only a few months later, at the start of 1962–63 season, he joined Académica de Coimbra. First with

José Maria Pedroto José Maria Carvalho Pedroto, OIH (21 October 1928 – 7 January 1985) was a Portuguese football midfielder and manager. He amassed Primeira Liga totals of 227 matches and 57 goals over 11 seasons, at the service of Lusitano, Belenenses and Por ...

and then with Mário Wilson, Rodrigues spent nine seasons in Coimbra, helping them reach a fourth place in 1964–65 and a club record second place in 1964–67, plus reaching two

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 ...

finals, in

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 6 – Vietnam War: United States Marine Corps and Army of ...

and

1969 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1969th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 969th year of the 2nd millennium, the 69th year of the 20th century, and the ...

. In 1971, after years of refusing offers from larger clubs, he accepted a move to Benfica. He made his debut on 12 September 1971, in a home win to

Porto Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...

and played a total of 25 matches throughout the season, winning a league and cup double, and reached the semi-final of the

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 ...

. During his spell at Benfica, he suffered minor injuries that hindered his progress in the team and with competition from Messias and others, the 31-year old chose to leave Benfica in 1974. Rodrigues then joined

for two seasons, playing all of the league games in 1974–75 and receiving the captain

armband An armband is a piece of material worn around the arm. They may be worn for pure ornamentation, or to mark the wearer as belonging to group, or as insignia having a certain rank, status, office or role, or being in a particular state or conditi ...

in the following year, which ended with another

final lost. Rodrigues returned to Académica in 1976, playing only 33 league appearances over three years, five of those in 1978–79 and with the team suffering relegation, the 36-year-old retired from football. In the following four years, he managed several teams, notably Leça and

Beira-Mar Sport Clube Beira-Mar (), commonly known as Beira-Mar, is a Portuguese sports club based in Aveiro, Portugal. Its Association football, football team currently plays in the Campeonato de Portugal (league), Campeonato de Portugal, the fourth natio ...

(twice), returning to Benfica in 1995 on invitation of Artur Jorge to coach the under-12, winning the Campeonato Nacional de Infantis.

International career

Rodrigues gained 12

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Java ...

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 ...

, nine as an Académica player. He made his debut on 26 November 1967 against

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

, in a 1–0 loss in

Sofia Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the western part of the country. The city is built west of the Is ...

for the

UEFA Euro 1968 The 1968 UEFA European Football Championship final tournament was held in Italy. This was the third UEFA European Championship, an event held every four years and organised by UEFA. The final tournament took place between 5 and 10 June 1968. It ...

qualifiers. Rodrigues' last appearance was on 16 October 1976 against

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, in a 2–0 home defeat for the

1978 FIFA World Cup The 1978 FIFA World Cup was the 11th edition of the FIFA World Cup, a Anniversary#Latin-derived numerical names, quadrennial international Association football, football world championship tournament among the men's senior national teams. It wa ...

qualification campaign.

Career statistics

:''Scores and results list Portugal's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Rodrigues goal.''

Honours

Académica *

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 ...

runner-up: 1966–67, 1968–69 Benfica *

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 ...

: 1971–72,

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 ...

: 1971–72 Vitória de Guimarães *

runner-up: 1975–76

References

General * Specific

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rodrigues, Rui 1943 births 2024 deaths Footballers from Maputo Portuguese men's footballers Men's association football defenders Primeira Liga players Académica de Coimbra (football) players S.L. Benfica footballers Vitória S.C. players Portugal men's international footballers Portuguese football managers S.C. Beira-Mar managers 20th-century Portuguese sportsmen