Miguel Veloso

Miguel Luís Pinto Veloso (Portuguese pronunciation: [miˈɣeɫ vɨˈlozu]; born 11 May 1986) is a Portuguese footballer who plays for Genoa C.F.C. and the Portuguese national team.

Mainly a defensive midfielder, he can also operate as an offensive left back.

Club career

Sporting

Born in Coimbra, Veloso started his football career at S.L. Benfica, but was rejected for being slightly overweight at the time. Later, at the age of 14, he entered Lisbon neighbours Sporting Clube de Portugal's youth system. There, he was promoted to the first team for the 2004–05 pre-season, which took place mainly in England; he started out as a central defender.^[1]

In order to give him more playing time, Sporting loaned Veloso to Clube Desportivo Olivais e Moscavide in the third level, and he helped it promote with a career-best seven goals. As a result, he was recalled by the Lions, though it appeared difficult for him to grab a spot in Sporting's starting team, because of the presence of players with much more experience, such as Ânderson Polga, Tonel, Marco Caneira or Custódio. Veloso ended up playing in 23 league matches in the season, as Sporting (again) finished second. He was equally impressive in his UEFA Champions League debut, a 1–0 home win against F.C. Internazionale Milano, where he stopped Patrick Vieira and Luís Figo from playing effectively. Before the match, much was made of Figo's homecoming, but by the end of the 90 minutes, all the talk was about Veloso, who turned in a Man of the match display.

In 2007–08, Veloso was ever-present in Sporting's central midfield, alongside another club youth graduate, João Moutinho. The club again lost the league to F.C. Porto, and the same befell in the following season, with the player being involved in some run-ins with manager Paulo Bento; in the previous off-season and following January transfer window, he attracted interest from several Premier League clubs, but nothing materialized.^[2][3][4]

In the 2009–10 UEFA Europa League, Veloso helped Sporting reach the last-16, after scoring in both legs of the 4–2 aggregate win against Everton;^[5][6] the club could only, however, finish fourth in the domestic league.

Genoa

On 30 July 2010, Veloso was sold to Genoa C.F.C. in Italy, as Spaniard Alberto Zapater moved in the opposite direction.^[7]

International career

Following his impressive performances for Portugal's under-21 side in the 2007 UEFA European Championship in June (although Portugal exited in the group stages, the skipper scored twice in three games),^[8] on 14 August 2007, Veloso was called-up for the Portuguese full squad for the first time, for an Euro 2008 qualifier against Armenia. He would make his international debut against Azerbaijan on 13 October.

In the tournament finals' group stage, Veloso appeared in the 2–0 loss against Switzerland, on 16 June 2008, a game in which nine out of eleven regular team starters were rested.

After a long spell out of the Portugal squad, he was recalled by coach Carlos Queiroz for a vital 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying match in Denmark in September 2009 (1–1 draw). He netted his first international goal in the same competition, as the national side defeated Malta 4–0, in Guimarães, on October 14.

Miguel Veloso: International goals

Goal	Date	Venue	Opponent	Score	Result	Competition
1	14 October 2009	Estádio D. Afonso Henriques, Guimarães, Portugal	Malta	3–0	4–0	2010 World Cup qualification
2	15 November 2011	Estádio da Luz, Lisbon, Portugal	Bosnia and Herzegovina	5–2	6–2	Euro 2012 qualifying play-offs

Honours

Club

Olivais e Moscavide

• Portuguese Second Division: 2005–06

Sporting

• Taça de Portugal: 2006–07, 2007–08
• Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira: 2007, 2008
• Taça da Liga: Runner-up 2007–08, 2008–09

Country

• UEFA European Under-17 Football Championship: 2003

Club statistics

Personal

Veloso's father, António, was also a footballer. A defender, he played 15 professional seasons for Benfica (more than 500 official matches), and gained 40 international caps.

References

External links

• Stats and profile at Zerozero
• Stats at ForaDeJogo (Portuguese)
• PortuGOAL profile
• Miguel Veloso at National-Football-Teams.com

Portugal squads v t e Portugal squad – 2007 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship 1 Ribeiro 2 Amoreirinha 3 Pereira 4 Veloso 5 Semedo 6 Organista 7 Oliveira 8 Fernandes 9 Almeida 10 Moutinho 11 Gonçalves 12 Batista 13 Rolando 14 Machado 15 Amorim 16 Moreira 17 Vaz Tê 18 Nani 19 Varela 20 Yannick 21 Antunes 22 Da Costa 23 Botelho Coach: Couceiro v t e Portugal squad – UEFA Euro 2008 1 Ricardo 2 Ferreira 3 Bruno Alves 4 Bosingwa 5 Meira 6 Meireles 7 C. Ronaldo 8 Petit 9 H. Almeida 10 J. Moutinho 11 Simão 12 Nuno 13 Miguel 14 Ribeiro 15 Pepe 16 Carvalho 17 Quaresma 18 Veloso 19 Nani 20 Deco 21 Nuno Gomes (c) 22 Patrício 23 H. Postiga Coach: Scolari v t e Portugal squad – 2010 FIFA World Cup 1 Eduardo 2 Bruno Alves 3 Ferreira 4 Rolando 5 Duda 6 Carvalho 7 C. Ronaldo (c) 8 P. Mendes 9 Liédson 10 Danny 11 Simão 12 Beto 13 Miguel 14 Veloso 15 Pepe 16 Meireles 17 Amorim 18 H. Almeida 19 Tiago 20 Deco 21 Costa 22 D. Fernandes 23 Coentrão Coach: Queiroz v t e Portugal squad – UEFA Euro 2012 1 Eduardo 2 Bruno Alves 3 Pepe 4 Veloso 5 Coentrão 6 Custódio 7 C. Ronaldo (c) 8 J. Moutinho 9 H. Almeida 10 Quaresma 11 N. Oliveira 12 Rui Patrício 13 R. Costa 14 Rolando 15 Micael 16 Meireles 17 Nani 18 Varela 19 M. Lopes 20 H. Viana 21 J. Pereira 22 Beto 23 Postiga Coach: Bento