Miguel Veloso
Personal information | |||
---|---|---|---|
Full name | Miguel Luís Pinto Veloso | ||
Height | 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in) | ||
Position(s) | Central midfielder | ||
Team information | |||
Current team | Sporting CP | ||
Number | 24 | ||
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of August 22, 2008 |
Miguel Luís Pinto Veloso (born May 11, 1986 in Coimbra) is a Portuguese football player, currently with Sporting Clube de Portugal. He plays mainly as a Central midfielder His father is former Portuguese national team and SL Benfica defender António Veloso. His mother is Teresa, and younger sister Raquel.
Club career
Early career
Veloso started his career at SL Benfica, where his father became famous. But at the age of 14 he switched to rivals Sporting Clube de Portugal where he played for 5 straight years, eventually training with the first team during the 2004-05 season.
Sporting Lisbon
In order to give him game time, Sporting loaned Veloso to Clube Desportivo Olivais e Moscavide for 2005-06. There, he accomplished, as an influential player, promotion to the second division.
As a result of this positive loan, Sporting recalled Veloso for the following season. He was attributed the jersey #24, and 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 Anderson Polga, Tonel, Marco Caneira or Custódio. However, he would play with the first team for most of the season. He was equally impressive in his UEFA Champions League debut, a 1-0 home win against Inter 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 ninety minutes all the talk was about Veloso, who turned in a man-of-the-match display in a memorable 1-0 win. In 2007-08 Veloso was everpresent, with João Moutinho, in Sporting's lineups throughout the season.
Arsenal
On transfer deadline day [1st September 2008] Veloso was very close to completing a transfer to English club Arsenal FC from Sporting Lisbon. It is believed that the two clubs agreed a fee of £13.5 million and all that was left was for Veloso to agree personal terms with Arsenal Football Club, however no personal terms could be agreed in time and the proposed transfer fell through. It is fully expected however for negotiations between the two clubs to resume once the transfer window re-opens in January.
International career
Following Veloso's impressive performances for Portugal's Under-21 side in the European championship in June 2007, (although Portugal exited in the group stages, skipper Veloso scored twice in three games), on August 14, 2007, he was called-up for the Portuguese full squad for the first time, for a Euro 2008 qualifier against Armenia. He would make his international debut against Azerbaijan, on October 13.
In the tournament's group stage, Veloso appeared in the 2-0 loss against Switzerland, on June 16, 2008.
Honours
- Portuguese Cup 2006, 2007
- Portuguese SuperCup 2007