Luis Nani: The Skilled Portuguese

If it seems presumptuous to say that Luis Nani is lost in football, looking back at Luis Carlos Almeida da Cunha Nani’s career can only provide some reasons. On 1 September 2006, Luis Carlos Almeida da Cunha made his Portugal national team debut and scored his goal for Portugal’s 4th in a 4-2 friendly against Denmark. After Cristiano moved to the English club “Manchester United”, Luis Carlos Almeida da Cunha and Wayne Rooney became one of the team’s leading players.

At the age of 16, Nani joined Real Sporting Club in Massama, where he joined the Portuguese capital club’s youth team, which gave him his first professional contract in 2005. Luis Nani joined the team in 2000 and continued to play until 2003. In the same year, he was transferred to the  Portugal CP Youth Program and continued to play with the team until 2005, helping the team win the 2004-2005 National Junior Championships.

Luis Nani captured the football world’s attention with his Champions League goal against Spartak Moscow, scoring for Sporting Portugal in a 1-1 group stage draw in September 2006. On 6 June 2007, he underwent a medical and signed a five-year contract with Manchester United, sharing a room with compatriot Cristiano Ronaldo at the start of his Manchester United career. At United, Nani established himself as a top-flight winger, winning three Premier League titles, the Football League Cup, the FIFA Club World Cup and three Community Shields.

Success also came to Nani on the international front when, as part of Euro 2016 victorious Portugal, he removed the captaincy of Cristiano Ronaldo in the final when his old Manchester United teammate was injured in the first half. In the last against France, Nani became European champion for the first time with his national team. Nani played his first international match for Portugal and was an additional player in later years. Nani has played over 100 times for the senior national team and represented Portugal in international football.

The season to match Luis Nani‘s hometown of Sporting Lisbon was terrible. After Ferguson, David Moyes and Louis van Gaal, the two coaches did not include Nani in their plans, spending a period on loan at former club Sporting Lisbon before he embarked on a European tour. Luis Nani has never found the same gradual way to improve his game, unlike another Portuguese football star.

This is, after all, a player who lived with another Portuguese football star during his early days at Manchester United and admitted that after the move, he sometimes became afraid to live alone in his big new house. Luis Nani also admitted to Mancunia’s Republik in 2010 that he wouldn’t mind if United signed a “friend” from Sporting Lisbon (“that would be great for me”), with a fan site noting that the player was on surprise shy. Even nervous” at a Nike event.