António Frasco

This name uses Portuguese naming customs. The first or maternal family name is Frasco and the second or paternal family name is Vieira.
António Frasco
Personal information
Full name António Manuel Frasco Vieira
Date of birth (1955-01-16) 16 January 1955
Place of birth Leça da Palmeira, Portugal
Height 1.68 m (5 ft 6 in)
Playing position Midfielder
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1973–1978 Leixões 101 (9)
1978–1989 Porto 238 (15)
Total 339 (24)
National team
1979–1987 Portugal 23 (1)
Teams managed
1993 Leça
1998 Aves
1999–2001 Ermesinde
2002 Dragões Sandinenses
2003–2004 Beira-Mar (assistant)

* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

† Appearances (goals)

António Manuel Frasco Vieira (born 16 January 1955 in Leça da Palmeira), known as Frasco, is a retired Portuguese footballer who played as an attacking midfielder.

Best known for his 11-year spell with Porto, he appeared in more than 300 official games for the club and won a total of 13 major titles. He was chosen by Portuguese sports newspaper Record as one of the best 100 Portuguese football players ever.

Frasco gained more than 20 caps for Portugal, representing the nation at Euro 1984.

Club career

In spite of a short height, Frasco's first sport was basketball, but Óscar Marques, a scout from Leixões SC, discovered him and took him to the club. He made his first-team – and top division, a competition in which he would play for 15 of his 16 years as a professional – at the age of 18, contributing with ten games as the Matosinhos side barely avoided relegation.

Frasco eventually imposed himself in the first team, as a starter, as Leixões suffered relegation in 1977. In the following year's off-season, however, he signed for FC Porto, after a failed transfer to S.L. Benfica two years earlier. In his first season with the José Maria Pedroto-led side, he played in all 30 matches as the team won the national championship, scoring a career-best six goals in the following campaign, with the league being narrowly lost to Sporting Clube de Portugal, as the domestic cup to Benfica.

After 1986, Frasco began suffering from successive small injuries which diminished his importance in the squad. He still appeared in seven games in Porto's victorious campaign in the European Cup, including 25 minutes in the final against FC Bayern Munich (2–1), eventually retiring in June 1989 at the age of 34.

Frasco then worked as a manager, coaching several teams in no higher than the second division (Leça F.C. in six games, C.D. Aves in ten). He returned to main club Porto in 2006 and worked with several of its youth teams, always as assistant.

International career

On 17 October 1979 Frasco made his debut for Portugal, in a 0–2 loss against Belgium in Brussels for the UEFA Euro 1980 qualifiers.

He was one of the most influential players in the successful Euro 1984 campaign, playing in all the games as the national team reached the semifinals and assisting Nené for the only goal against Romania in the group stage. He gained 23 caps in eight years of international play, scoring once.

António Frasco: International goals
Goal Date Venue Opponent Score Result Competition
1 4 February 1987 Estádio Primeiro de Maio, Braga, Portugal  Belgium 1–0 1–0 Friendly

Honours

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, January 31, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.