Virgilio Da Costa Neves (23 September 1881 – unknown) was a Portuguese

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 as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People *Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Smal ...

for Spanish club

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly known as FC Barcelona and colloquially as Barça (), is a professional Football club (association football), football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of ...

. He is best known for being the first Portuguese player to wear the FC Barcelona shirt when he played for them in 1903. He was often mentioned in the press of his time as D'Acosta or Da Acosta, and was erroneously considered to be of Italian origin.

Biography

Virgilio Da Costa Neves was born in Porto on 23 September 1881. Between 1900 and 1905 he studied

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

at the Hochschule

Mittweida Mittweida () is a town in Saxony, Germany, in the Mittelsachsen district. Geography Mittweida is situated on the river Zschopau, 18 km north of Chemnitz, and 54 km west of Dresden. Embedded within the steep hills and valleys of the ri ...

University of Applied Sciences (

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

, Germany). There he developed an interest in football and began playing for the school's

football team A football team is a group of players selected to play together in the various team sports known as football. Such teams could be selected to play in a match against an opposing team, to represent a football club, group, state or nation, an All-st ...

, Mittweidaer Ballspiel-Club, which had been founded in 1896 by students. It was around this time that da Costa met the German Udo Steinberg, an industrial and

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

ing from the same university and who also played for Mittweida BC, and they quickly established a great friendship. In addition to da Costa and Steinberg, Mittweida BC was also the football cradle of the likes of Antonio Alonso from

Vigo Vigo (, ; ) is a city and Municipalities in Spain, municipality in the province of province of Pontevedra, Pontevedra, within the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, Spain. Located in the northwest ...

Juan Arzuaga Juan Sandalio Arzuaga Anitua (3 September 1880 – 26 August 1951) was a Spanish Association football, footballer who played as a Association football positions#Defender, defender for Athletic Bilbao, Athletic Club, and later a Referee (associati ...

, Adolfo Uribe and Luis Astorquia from

Bilbao Bilbao is a city in northern Spain, the largest city in the Provinces of Spain, province of Biscay and in the Basque Country (greater region), Basque Country as a whole. It is also the largest city proper in northern Spain. Bilbao is the List o ...

. Steinberg then settled in Barcelona for professional reasons, and so, in 1902, da Costa began to make visits to Barcelona and play sporadically with Hispania AC. He then played with FC Barcelona between 1903 and 1906, making his debut in an official match on 29 November 1903, in a Catalan Championship fixture against Joventut (3–0), for a total of 11 official matches in the Championship, playing intermittently until his dismissal on 28 February 1906, with his last match being a friendly against the Veterans FC, which also ended in a 3–0 win. In total, he played 16 matches, netting seven goals. Together with the likes of

José Quirante José Quirante Pineda (10 May 1883 in Alicante, Spain – 30 May 1964 in Barcelona, Spain) was a footballer who played as a midfielder, being one of the first players to play for both FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. He is also remembered for being ...

Romà Forns Romà Forns Saldaña (died 26 April 1942) was a Spanish footballer and manager. He made his debut as a footballer in late 1902 playing one season for Irish FC but spent the rest of his career with FC Barcelona and the Catalan XI, always as a ...

, Udo Steinberg and

Carles Comamala Carles Comamala López-Del Pan (17 April 1889 – 4 August 1983) was an orthopedic surgeon by profession and a football player for Barcelona between 1903 and 1911. He was a director of Barcelona in 1909–1911. Early life and career Born in M ...

, he helped Barça win the 1904–05 Catalan championship. In 1906 Virgilio Da Costa Neves returned to his native Porto to work as an engineer and his return coincided with the reactivation of Futebol Clube do Porto in 1906, and after his football career in Mittweida and Barcelona, he enthusiastically joined the new project, led by José Monteiro da Costa. Da Costa was the first Portuguese player for FC Barcelona.

Honours

FC Barcelona * Catalan championship ** Champions: 1904–05

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Da Costa, Virgilio 1881 births Footballers from Porto Year of death missing Portuguese men's footballers Men's association football forwards FC Barcelona players FC Porto players Portuguese expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Spain Portuguese expatriates in Spain