Place of birth Porto, Portugal Name Fernando Gomes Position Forward Years Team Weight 78 kg | 1972–1974 Porto Height 1.74 m Playing position Role Footballer | |
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Full name Fernando Mendes Soares Gomes Died 26 November 2022 (aged 66), Porto, Portugal Born 22 November 1956 (age 66), Porto, Portugal 1974–1980 Porto(Senior career) 1980–1982 Sporting Gijón(Senior career) 1982–1989 Porto(Senior career) 1989–1991 Sporting CP(Senior career) 1975–1988 Portugal(National team) Nationality Portuguese Similar Paulo Futre, Rui Barros, Nuno Gomes | ||
Fernando gomes la bi bota
Fernando Mendes Soares Gomes (born 22 November 1956) is a retired Portuguese professional footballer who played as a striker.
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He achieved great success with FC Porto during the late 1970s and 1980s. While technically only a good player, his talent resided on a fantastic positional sense, which made him very dangerous inside the six-yard box.
The recipient of nearly 50 caps for Portugal, Gomes represented the nation in one World Cup and one European Championship.
Club career
Showing great ability since entering FC Porto's youth squads, Porto-born Gomes scored twice in his first-team debut against G.D. CUF, in 1974. Except for a brief two-year stint with Sporting de Gijón, when most key players left the club in support of director of football – later president – Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, he was on all important moments of the rebirth of the club: the 20-year league drought end in the 1978–79 season, the first UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final against Juventus F.C. in 1984 and, while he missed the 1987 final of the European Cup against FC Bayern Munich after breaking a leg days before, he scored five goals in the side's victorious campaign, including the important second against FC Dynamo Kyiv in the semifinals; he recovered still in time to play in the European Supercup against AFC Ajax and the Intercontinental Cup against C.A. Peñarol, on both occasions captaining the winner and scoring the opening goal in the latter game for a 2–1 win.
In addition, Gomes also won five leagues, three Portuguese Cups and three domestic supercups. Due to personality clashes with the club's board he left for Sporting Clube de Portugal, ending his career in 1990–91 after still netting 22 league goals in his final season and also helping the Lions to that year's UEFA Cup semifinals, aged 34.
Gomes retired with Portuguese League totals of 404 matches and 320 goals. His nickname, "Bi-bota", was given after the two European Golden Boot awards he received, in 1983 and 1985. He remained the best goalscorer in the national territory for more than two decades, only behind S.L. Benfica's Nené, and later returned to Porto, going on to work with the club in an ambassadorial role.
International career
For the Portugal national team, Gomes scored 11 goals in 48 games from 9 March 1975 until 16 November 1988. His final appearance occurred against Luxembourg for the 1990 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, netting the only goal at the Estádio do Bessa.
Gomes was part of the squads at both UEFA Euro 1984 and the 1986 World Cup, being one of the few players that did not defect the national side after the latter competition (following the infamous Saltillo Affair) and ending his international career two years later.