Costinha

Francisco José Rodrigues da Costa Júnior, OIH, better known as Costinha (pron. kɔʃ'tiɲɐ), (born December 1, 1974 in Lisbon) is a Portuguese football player. He currently plays as a central midfielder for Atalanta B.C., joining them from Atlético Madrid. He is best known for his tackling and positioning.

Arguably, his finest moment for F.C. Porto was when he scored against and effectively knocked out Manchester United in the 2003-04 Champions League first knockout round. Porto went on to win the title, beating AS Monaco FC 3-0 in the final.

After a less successful run with FC Porto in the 2004-05 season, he was sold to Dynamo Moscow with Maniche and Yourkas Seitaridis, joining former teammate Derlei.

Costinha played for Portugal at Euro 2000, Euro 2004 and 2006 FIFA World Cup. He has scored 2 goals in 49 caps for Portugal. On June 25, during the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, Costinha was sent off after receiving two yellow cards against the Netherlands.

Costinha has not been called to the Euro 2008 Portuguese national squad, and very rarely appeared in the qualifiers.

Career statistics

|- |1997-98||rowspan="4"|Monaco||rowspan="4"|Division 1||11||0|||||||||||||||| |- |1998-99||21||2|||||||||||||||| |- |1999-00||28||1|||||||||||||||| |- |2000-01||24||0|||||||||||||||| |- |2001-02||rowspan="4"|Porto||rowspan="4"|Portuguese Liga||28||3|||||||||||||||| |- |2002-03||23||5|||||||||||||||| |- |2003-04||27||2|||||||||||||||| |- |2004-05||30||3|||||||||||||||| |- |2005||Dynamo Moscow||Premier League||10||0|||||||||||||||| |- |2006-07||Atlético Madrid||La Liga||24||0|||||||||||||||| |- |2007-08||rowspan="2"|Atalanta||rowspan="2"|Serie A||1||0|||||||||||||||| |- |2008-09||||||||||||||||||||94||3||||||||||||||||108||13||||||||||||||||10||0||||||||||||||||24||0||||||||||||||||1||0||||||||||||||||237||16|||||||||||||||| |}

Titles

• UEFA Champions League (2004)
• UEFA Cup (2003)
• Portuguese SuperLiga (2003, 2004)
• Ligue 1 (2000)
• FIFA Intercontinental Cup (2004)