Artur Jorge (footballer)

Artur Jorge Braga Melo Teixeira, better known as Artur Jorge (born February 13, 1946, in Porto) is a Portuguese football coach and a former football player. He was chosen by Portuguese sports newspaper 'Record' as one of the best 100 Portuguese football players of all time.

Club career

As a junior player, he started at the junior team of FC Porto. As professional player, he played for Académica de Coimbra and Benfica, before ending his career in Belenenses, in the 1977–78 season, due to a serious injury. During his player days in Coimbra, Jorge was a student at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Coimbra, graduating in Germanic Philology from the University of Lisbon in 1975, after his transfer to Lisbon's Benfica. During his career as a player, he won four Portuguese Football Championships, two Portuguese Football Cups and two silver boots, as the prize for best goalscorer. Despite having been one of the top scorers at Benfica during his time there, the concurrence of other great forwards, like Eusébio, Jordão and Nené, explain why he had only 16 caps for the Portugal National Team, 2 while at Académica de Coimbra, 13 at Benfica and 1 while playing for Belenenses, scoring only one goal during his international career. His debut, on 27 March 1967, was a 1-1 draw with Italy, in a friendly match, in Rome. His last game, was on 30 March 1977, resulted in a 1-0 win over Switzerland, in another friendly match, in Funchal. He was a member of the squad that reached the Independence Brazil Cup final, in 1972, the highest point of his international career. He underwent knee surgery five times during his career, this is attributed as one of the causes of his declining abilities at the end of the career. Though his career would ultimately come to an end as the reulst of a training ground accident at the Estádio Nacional, where he broke his leg.

Manager

After his player career, he went to Leipzig in then East Germany, to study football and training methodology. He signed at F.C. Porto for the 1984/85 season, where he won three National Champion titles and two Cups of Portugal.His greatest success was to win the European Champions Cup with F.C. Porto, in a great victory over favourites Bayern Munich 2-1. Artur Jorge is known since then as "King Artur" (Rei Artur). He moved to Racing Paris the next season, and returned to FC Porto in 1988/89. He moved to Paris Saint-Germain, in 1991/92, where he won the National Championship, in 1993/94. He moved to Benfica, in 1994/95, finishing 3rd with his team, and was replaced at the beginning of the following season. Since then he has been coach of several other clubs: Académica de Coimbra O.A.F., Vitesse Arnhem, CD Tenerife, CSKA Moscow, and the Portugal national football team, first, still as FC Porto coach, for 1989/90 and 1990/91, later for the 1996/97 and 1997/98 seasons, Switzerland national football team, and since 2005, Cameroon national football team. He failed to lead his team to the 2006 World Cup. He managed Saudi club Al-Nasr for only two cup matches and was sacked following a 4-1 defeat by lowly club side Al-Faisaly. Artur Jorge managed French second division team Créteil in 2006-2007.

Honours

• Portuguese Liga 1971,1972,1973,1975,1985,1986,1990
• Portuguese Cup 1970,1972,1988,1991
• Portuguese SuperCup 1985,1994
• French Cup 1993
• Saudi Premier League 2002
• UEFA Champions League 1987