Tiago Alexandre Sousa Esgaio (born 1 August 1995) is a

Portuguese 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 ...

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 lea ...

who plays for

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 ...

club Arouca mainly as a

right-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 ...

Club career

B-SAD

Born in Nazaré,

Leiria District The District of Leiria ( ) is a district located between the Oeste e Vale do Tejo and Centro regions of Portugal, and divided between the traditional provinces of Beira Litoral and Estremadura. It borders on the north with district of Coimbra, ...

, played youth football for three clubs. He made his senior debut in the third division, spending one season apiece with Caldas S.C. and

S.C.U. Torreense Sport Clube União Torreense is a Portuguese sports club, best known for its association football section, founded in Torres Vedras in 1917, as Sport União Torreense. History It participated six times in the Portuguese Liga (last in 1991–9 ...

. On 4 April 2018, Esgaio moved straight to the

after signing a three-year contract with

B-SAD B-SAD was a Portuguese football club currently based in Almada, founded on 30 June 2018 as an independent entity. An offshoot of Clube de Futebol Os Belenenses, they played four seasons in the Primeira Liga, being relegated to the Liga Portugal ...

to be made effective on 1 July. He was then loaned to Torreense for the upcoming third-tier campaign. Back at Belenenses, Esgaio played his first match in the Portuguese top flight on 15 September 2019, coming on as a late substitute in a 3–1 away win against

C.S. Marítimo Club Sport Marítimo MH M (), commonly known as Marítimo or Marítimo da Madeira, is a Portuguese professional sports club based in the city of Funchal, on the island of Madeira. Established in 1910, Marítimo is best known for its football team ...

. He scored his first goal in the competition two weeks later, but in a 3–1 loss at

F.C. Famalicão Futebol Clube de Famalicão, commonly known as Famalicão, is a Portuguese professional association football, football club from Vila Nova de Famalicão. Founded on 21 August 1931, its senior team currently plays in the Primeira Liga, the top tie ...

Braga and Arouca

On 23 June 2021, Esgaio joined

S.C. Braga Sporting Clube de Braga (), commonly known as Sporting de Braga or just Braga, is a Portuguese sports club from the city of Braga. Best known for the men's professional football team playing in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese foo ...

on a four-year deal. Two months later, he was loaned to

F.C. Arouca Futebol Clube de Arouca () is a professional Association football, football club based in the Porto metropolitan area. Founded in 1951, the club plays in the Primeira Liga, holding home games at Estádio Municipal de Arouca, with a 5,600-seat capac ...

also of the top tier for the season; the move was extended for

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

. He scored his first goal for the latter club on 22 December 2022, equalising an eventual 2–1 away victory over Moreirense F.C. in the

quarter-finals A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

of the

Taça da Liga The Taça da Liga (), known outside Portugal as Portuguese League Cup, is an annual club football competition organised by the Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional (LPFP) for teams competing in the top two tiers of Portuguese football – the ...

. In June 2023, Esgaio was loaned to Arouca for another year. In summer 2024, he was released by Braga and signed a permanent three-year contract for a

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...

200,000 fee.

Personal life

Esgaio's older brother,

Ricardo Ricardo is the Spanish and Portuguese cognate of the name Richard. It derived from Proto-Germanic ''*rīks'' 'king, ruler' + ''*harduz'' 'hard, brave'. It may be a given name, or a surname. People Given name * Ricardo de Araújo Pereira (born ...

, was also a footballer and a right-back.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Esgaio, Tiago 1995 births Living people People from Nazaré, Portugal 21st-century Portuguese sportsmen Portuguese men's footballers Footballers from Leiria District Men's association football fullbacks Men's association football midfielders Primeira Liga players Campeonato de Portugal (league) players Caldas S.C. players S.C.U. Torreense players B-SAD players S.C. Braga players F.C. Arouca players