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The Portuguese soccer national team (FPF), the Selecção (selection), is one of the strongest national teams in European football. Unfortunately, neither the Portuguese Soccer national team or any of the club teams have so far managed a Euro or World Cup win, even with their line-up of world quality players such as Luís Carlos Almeida da Cunha also known as Nani and Cristiano Ronaldo. Maybe this will change in Euro 2008.
The home games of the Selecção are mainly played in the following stadiums: FC Porto play in theEstádio do Dragão, Lisbon performs in the Estádio da Luz Benfica and Sporting Lisbon have Estádio José Alvalade. The Portuguese Football Federation or the Federação Portuguesa de Futebol (FPF) was founded nearly one hundred years ago in 1914. A few years later in1923 Portugal joined the joined the FPF the World Federation, and then in1954 they became part of FIFA and UEFA.
The biggest success that the Portuguese soccer A-team has ever accomplished was when they celebrated at the World Cup in 1966 in England, who won the title that year. Portugal managed respectable third position, sixties soccer star Eusébio scoring a massive nine goals in the championship.
The European Championship 2004 was a great success for Portugal. They also performed well at the European Football Championship in the summer of 1984, in France and at the European Football Championship during 2000 in Belgium and the Netherlands. At the World Cup 2006, the team included Luís Carlos Almeida da Cunha, Nani, Cristiano Ronaldo, but unfortunately they still could not make the magic happen and Portugal again managed a respectable placing, finishing in fourth position.
In the quarter-finals of the World Cup 2006 played in Germany, goalkeeper Ricardo performed magnificently in the penalty shootout against England. He now holds a Portuguese soccer record as the first goalkeeper ever to wear the jersey of the Portuguese soccer national team three times in the World Cup.
Cristiano Ronaldo is the Portuguese soccer star who plays for British club Manchester United, he holds the strange distinction that he was signed in secret by the club and the media were only alerted when the stock market became aware of the signing as part of their share dealings.
In the last twelve months, Nani joined his very good friend Ronaldo at Manchester United. The young player signed for a reported fee of £14.5 million from Sporting Lisbon in June 2007. He plays as a winger and has already featured for Manchester United a number of times this season, scoring the winning goal against Spurs. Nani is well known for celebrating a goal with his highly acrobatic somersaults worthy of an Olympic gymnast.
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