Luis Figo

Luis Figo

Luís Filipe Madeira Caeiro Figo, OIH (pron. IPA [lu'i 'figu]) (born November 4, 1972 in Lisbon, Portugal) is a Portuguese footballer who is widely regarded as one of the greatest players of recent years.

He plays as a midfielder and winger, currently for Inter Milan. Luís Figo will join the Saudi club Al-Ittihad on 1st July 2007. The sum paid for his services was undisclosed but it is the largest fee ever paid in the Arabic world.

He is widely considered one of Portugal's best players. Figo was known as the original Golden Boy (a name which now belongs to his friend Cristiano Ronaldo, a teammate of Figo's from the Portugal national football team and played alongside him as a winger during the 2006 FIFA
World Cup). He was also known as the main footballer behind Portugal's prominent Golden Generation that consisted of fellow legends like Rui Costa, and was the reason why the term came into use.

Figo was the 2000 European Footballer of the Year, the 2001 FIFA World Player of the Year, and was named amongst the FIFA 100. Known for his exceptional trickery and dribbling skills on either wing (though he predominantly plays on the right), Figo is one of the few footballers to have played for both the Spanish rival clubs FC Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Figo started his career at Sporting Clube de Portugal, a club which developed many other great Portuguese players. He won his first senior international cap in 1991. Prior to that, he won the Under-20 World Championships and Under-16 European Championships with Portugal junior sides, alongside compatriot Rui Costa and a significant part of his nation's so called 'golden generation' in football. In 1995, Figo looked poised to join one of the big clubs of Europe, but a dispute
between Italian clubs Juventus F.C. and Parma, Figo having signed contracts with both clubs, resulted in an Italian 2-year transfer ban on Figo, effectively stopping any moves to Italy. However, the situation was eventually resolved for Figo, with a move to Spanish club FC Barcelona, under coach Johan Cruijff, and within four years he became a fan-favourite, captain and symbol of the Catalan side.

In 2000, his switch to Barcelona's arch-rival Real Madrid, for a then world transfer record £38.7 million at the time, only intensified the great animosity between the two clubs. The move was hurtful to Barcelona supporters especially after he spent the summer swearing he would not transfer to Madrid.He went from being one of the most cherished players in Catalonia to being the most hated one. There was a short-lived website, AntiFigo.com, devoted to insult "Judas Figo". He missed his highly anticipated first return to the Nou Camp due to injury; in 2002, Barcelona's ground was almost closed after objects (including a pig's head, whiskey bottles, etc.) were thrown at Figo, while massive chants calling him Pesetero (which can be roughly translated to mercenary) echoed in the stadium; and finally, during the final match of Euro 2004 between Greece and Portugal, a Barça fan known as Jimmy Jump ran across the field and threw a FC Barcelona flag at Figo in an apparent act of defiance.

Despite the niggling detractors and all the critics' cries that he was a vastly 'overrated' player, Figo played out some of the best attacking football ever seen in both an individual and in his Real Madrid team.It was not hard to see why though, given that Figo was one of the linchpins at the heart of an ever increasing star studded squad that included Zinedine Zidane, Steve McManaman, Fernando Hierro, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo, and Raúl González, and dubbed the 'Greatest Club in the World' first, and then, officially crowned as the 'Club of the Century' by FIFA in the year he joined. Alongside his equally illustrious team mates, Real Madrid with Figo at the core swept the titles for the next three years under coach Vicente Del Bosque.On August 18, 2004, Figo announced that he would "take a break" from international football. In April 2005 he announced to be ready to return, as he was sidelined in Real Madrid, and the next month Luiz Felipe Scolari announced he would talk to him about his return. He agreed to return on 13 May and resumed his international career in the match between Portugal and Slovakia on June 4. This received mixed feelings from Portuguese fans: some saw his return as fixing something that should not have happened, others were fearful of the "concessions"
Scolari made to bring him back.

Figo captained the squad during the 2006 World Cup, leading the team to the semi-finals, its furthest advance in the tournament since 1966.However, France eliminated them 1-0. Ricardo Carvalho made the doubtful penalty, which French captain Zinedine Zidane promptly scored; it stood as the winning goal. Figo himself had a chance to tie the game off of Fabien Barthez's fumble, but he headed the ball over the net. At the end of the match, Zidane and Figo, formerly teammates on Real Madrid
during the club's glory years, swapped shirts and hugged. The third place playoff caused some controversy as Figo did not start; Pauleta captained the team in his place. However, Portugal fell behind 0-2 to hosts Germany and Figo replaced Pauleta in the 77th minute, regaining his captaincy during the substitution. Although Germany scored another goal shortly after Figo's entrance, he ended his final cap for his country on a high note as he set up Nuno Gomes's goal in the 88th
minute to help Portugal claw back a marker.

Career overviewThe leader of Portugal's 'golden generation', Figo won a FIFA World Youth Championship in 1991, the same year he made his senior debut against Luxembourg, at 16 October 1991, in a friendly match, that ended 1-1, when he was only 18 years old. He has performed at the highest level ever since, gracing Euro 96, Euro 2000, and the 2002 and 2006 FIFA World Cup. He announced his retirement from international football following the UEFA EURO 2004™ final defeat by Greece, having won 117 caps and scored 31 goals. However, in June 2005 he reversed his
decision and returned for 2006 World Cup qualifying wins against Slovakia and Estonia. He again vowed to retire from international football after the 2006 World Cup and made a cameo appearance (played around 10 minutes at the end of the game) in Portugal's last game of the tournament, the third-place play-off, in which he set up Portugal's only goal for Nuno Gomes.

It was with FC Barcelona from 1995 that the career of the 'Lion King' really took off: Figo won a UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1996/97,successive Primera División titles and went on to appear 172 times for
the Blaugrana, scoring 30 goals. Figo was able to garner many plaudits while at the Nou Camp, such as Sir Alex Ferguson, who it has been later claimed almost brought him to Manchester United before Euro 2000 in a swap deal with David Beckham.

In 2000 came his controversial, world-record transfer to Real Madrid CF. The move caused outrage among Barcelona fans and many others baulked at the €65m fee. Yet Figo justified the investment by helping Madrid to the Primera División title and UEFA Champions League semi-finals as well as winning the FIFA World Footballer of the Year award. In 2001/02, he went one better, playing through injury against Bayer Leverkusen as Madrid prevailed 2-1. Figo also occupied a major role as Madrid won the 2003 Spanish title, scoring ten times. The success made up for the disappointment of a Champions League semi-final loss to Juventus F.C., but the next season, despite Figo's nine league
goals, Madrid finished fourth and lost in the Champions League last eight and Copa del Rey final.

He struck four goals in the Champions League group stage in 2004/2005 but it was another mixed campaign for Madrid, Real Madrid coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo had a falling-out with Figo after he relegated the Portugal international to the bench for the second half of the 2004/2005 Primera Liga season and David Beckham was moved to the right. It was widely believed that Figo would leave Los Merengues for first-team football elsewhere. During the off-season, he was linked with a move to the English Premiership with Liverpool or to Serie A's Inter Milan. Given permission to leave by Madrid, on August 5, 2005,Figo moved to Inter on a free transfer and a two-year deal worth £6
million.

In December 2006, Saudi Arabian side Al-Ittihad reported Figo would transfer to the club in January 2007. Figo traveled to Saudi Arabia to sign a contract, but after talks with Inter Milan owner and
President Massimo Moratti, Figo remained in the club and renewed his contract until the end of the 2007-08 season. Thus, a statement made on January 3, 2007, on the official Inter website declaring: "There are no negotiations for the transfer of Luis Figo to another club. The recent news of a possible transfer of the Portuguese midfielder is,therefore, completely groundless." (Inter.it) Despite this statement,on January 5th, 2007, it was announed on the website of La Gazzetta dello Sport, that Figo had signed a contract in Saudi Arabia, starting on July 1st, 2007.

Away from football

Along with his countryman, football manager Carlos Queiroz, Figo was briefly joint seat holder for A1 Team Portugal, in A1 Grand Prix,during the 2005-06 season (A1 Team Portugal stopped competing after the first season, despite a reasonable amount of success).Luís Figo is nowadays one of the main Portuguese symbols and ambassadors.

Family Life

Luís Figo is married to Swedish model Helen Svedin. The two met on a television show and are now married with three daughters, Daniela (born in March 1999), Martina (born in April 2002), and Stella (born December 9, 2004).

Like several of his Real Madrid colleagues at the time like Steve McManaman and Roberto Carlos, Luís is a devout Catholic, and met the Pope with those team mates in 2002.