Jorge Manuel Andrade

Jorge Manuel Almeida Gomes de Andrade (Pronunciation, (born April 9, 1978 in Lisbon) is a Portugal football (soccer) defender (football), currently with Juventus F.C.

Club career

Andrade debuted for his hometown club C.F. Estrela da Amadora in 1997, during their most successful season ever as they finished 7th in the first division. Andrade immediately caught the eye, and in 2000 was on the move north, to F.C. Porto. He was Porto’s most-used player in the UEFA Champions League 2001-02, playing 12 times as the team reached the second group phase.

After Portugal national football team’s unsuccessful 2002 FIFA World Cup campaign, Andrade was snapped up by then-big-spending Deportivo de La Coruña in a move that cost the Galicians in excess of €12m.

On April 21 2004, during a UEFA Champions League semi-finals match against former team Porto, Andrade was sent off by referee Markus Merk for a kick on Deco. The gesture was of a friendly nature, but Merk was eluded by it, and immediately sent Andrade off.

Andrade was subsequently courted by numerous clubs, including Chelsea F.C., Liverpool F.C., Manchester United, FC Barcelona, Valencia CF and Internazionale Milano F.C., but ended up signing for Juventus FC in summer 2007. In a match against AS Roma, he badly broke his left rotula and missed the rest of the Serie A 2007-08.

In the team's 2008 preseason, Andrade again snapped the same kneecap and missed the entire 2008-09. In a press release dated 7/8/08, Juventus stated: "On 9 July 2008, during a training session at Pinzolo, the player Almeida Gomes de Andrade, Jorge Manuel, was the victim of another serious injury to his left knee (relapse of the fracture of the rotula) operated twice in the past season. A new osteosynthesis operation was thus needed. The post-surgery prognosis is a number of months.

Given the impossibility for the player to recover to play professionally, the company has proceeded to fully write down the residual book value of the player's registration rights with a negative effect on the 2007-08 financial year for € 6.8 million."That was the third in a year and the fourth left knee surgery Andrade had in his career.

Andrade, along with fellow Portuguese internationals Miguel Monteiro, Luís Carlos Almeida da Cunha and Nélson Marcos, is a descendant from the tiny Cape Verde islands. He visited his homeland in 2006 and did some work with grassroots football during his stay.