[Futebol] Raul Meireles (Raul José Trindade Meireles)

Raul Meireles

Raul José Trindade Meireles nasceu no Porto no dia 17 de Março de 1983.
Fez toda a formação no Boavista FC. Ainda júnior, representou a Selecção Nacional de sub-16 que venceu o Campeonato da Europa disputado em Israel em 2000. Quando se estreou, em 2001/02, como sénior foi emprestado ao Desportivo das Aves onde jogou durante duas temporadas, tendo regressado ao clube do Bessa em 2003/04.
Na Primavera de 2004 voltou a marcar presença no Campeonato da Europa, desta vez na Selecção Nacional de sub-21 que na Alemanha alcançou o terceiro lugar na competição. No verão desse mesmo ano voltou a representar Portugal nos Jogos Olímpicos de Atenas.
No início da época de 2004/05 transferiu-se para o Futebol Clube do Porto. Ao serviço dos Dragões, Raul Meireles manteve-se durante seis épocas e ainda iniciou a temporada de 2010/11. No período de tempo em que representou o F.C. Porto, sagrou Tetra-Campeão Nacional, venceu três Taças de Portugal e três Supertaças Cândido de Oliveira. Curiosamente a ultima vez que vestiu a camisola azul e branca foi no jogo em que conquistou a sua ultima Supertaça.
No dia 28 de Agosto de 2010 transferiu-se para o FC Liverpool.

Palmarés
4 Campeonatos de Portugal
3 Taças de Portugal
3 Supertaças Cândido de Oliveira

Publicada por Paulo Moreira em 10/10/2010

Estrelas do FCP: Raul Meireles

Raul Meireles de visita ao Olival

Depois de Lucho, que esteve em Aveiro ao lado de Pinto da Costa, ontem foi a vez de Raul Meireles matar saudades. O médio, actualmente ao serviço do Liverpool, aproveitou a folga concedida por Kenny Dalglish para dar um salto ao Olival. Meireles chegou cedo, passou pelo balneário, onde conversou com a maioria dos ex-companheiros e ainda assistiu a parte do treino. O Liverpool foi eliminado da Taça da Liga pelo Manchester United e por isso não joga neste fim-de-semana. O próximo jogo é na quarta-feira, daí os dois dias de descanso a que teve direito.

The New Liverpool Hero Helping to Push the Club In the Right Direction




Liverpool’s much publicised demise from the top four has been partly accredited to Rafa Benitez’s decision to sell wantaway midfielder Xabi Alonso in the summer of 2009, a player The Reds have missed over the last couple of seasons, and who’s influence has yet to be replaced. However with the emergence of Raul Meireles this season, although the Portuguese midfield man is a different type of player to Alonso, Liverpool have a bit of extra drive, quality and bite in the centre of the park that will benefit their ambitions to make it back into Champions League qualification contention next season.

Xabi Alonso’s talents have been much praised both during his time at Anfield and since the realisation of his importance to Liverpool upon his departure, and this article does not need to go back over covered ground. Yes Alonso did much to facilitate Steven Gerrard with his precision passing and vision, which in turn allowed Fernando Torres to prosper, and Liverpool have lacked a good passer of the ball in defensive positions to supply their more attacking players since, with Lucas Leiva having Alonso’s boots to fill without success. However with the inclusion of Meireles in the Liverpool starting XI, their attacking style has somewhat changed.

The ex-Porto man offers a different threat to opponents than Alonso through his fearless attitude on the pitch and the box-to-box nature of his play. Meireles has adapted to the physical nature of English football well, and has a steel and combatitivness that has endeared him to the Kop, with the fans respecting and responding to the midfield man’s efforts and heart during ninety minutes. In buying foreign players there is always a risk that they will not match the physicality of their British opponents week to week, but Meireles has a good work ethic, is happy and eager to close his opposite number down and will put his foot into a tackle without being reckless. Add to this good positional play and a willingness to run from the first minute to the last; it is clear to see why Liverpool fans have taken him to their heart.

Meireles is not as good a passer of the ball as Xabi Alonso, few are. However the Portuguese has in part brought back the pass and move nature of the Liverpool midfield that dominated English football in boss Kenny Dalglish’s playing days, and Meireles is much more mobile than Alonso, winning possession, picking a pass (maybe not with the same vision as the Spaniard) and bursting forward looking for a return. This energy and enthusiasm is difficult to shackle if you are playing against it, and Meireles’s breaks forward will do much to create space for Steven Gerrard when he returns to fitness, and new strikers Suarez and Carroll will have better supply than Torres did pre-Meireles. With his willingness to get forward and box to box style of play, it is inevitable that Meireles will also contribute goals to the cause himself, and he has scored five goals in 25 league appearances this season, some of which have contributed to Liverpool’s revival under Dalglish.

With Dalglish now in charge and playing Meireles in the centre of the park rather than on the flank as Roy Hodgson did, the Portugal international is in prime position to take centre stage and be the lynchpin of a different attacking strategy for The Reds. He won’t bring back the 60 yard precision passes the Kop were used to when Xabi Alonso wore the red of Liverpool, but he will offer a never say die attitude and a short and dynamic passing game that opponents in the Premier League, and perhaps the Champions League in seasons to come, will struggle to live with.

Meireles looks to slay bitter rivals

On Sunday lunchtime, Raul Meireles will need his dragon. It covers his back. “You know what it means?” asks the Portuguese midfielder, when required to explain the vast tattoo which runs down his spine.


“It is protection. In Japanese mythology, it is the perfect creature.”

On Sunday, Manchester United are at Anfield. Against the Red Devils, face to face with Liverpool's demons, Raul Meireles will need his dragon.

He knows it, too. His eyes are wide, his tone disbelieving, when he discusses the intensity, the sheer, relentless physicality which pervades the Premier League. "The kicks here," he exclaims. "Ooph. The game never stops. Everything is a battle."

Never more so than against United; never more so than when United must be defeated if Liverpool are to have any hope at all of remaining even the joint most titled club in England. Reason to be afraid? Reason to think he has no taste for a third encounter with Sir Alex Ferguson's side this season? No. A laugh. "It is very good. I like it. This is England. It is unbelievable."

It is a word that crops up often in 45 minutes in Meireles's company on a sunny spring afternoon at Melwood, Liverpool's tranquil training complex. He is relaxed, engaging, his English fluent enough to showcase his rapid-fire wit. His sentences are short, staccato. He receives an idea, releases a retort. He is as economical with words as he is with possession. And he is positive. Always, breathlessly positive.

The Porto team where he made his name? "Lucho Gonzalez, Lisandro Lopez. Unbelievable." Andre Villas-Boas, the coach at the club he departed last summer for Anfield for £11.7 million? "I only worked one month with him. Unbelievable. He is like Steve Clarke, since he came here. Wow."

His delight is not restricted to his former club. Rui Bento, his hero, was unbelievable. Steven Gerrard, his captain, likewise. Kenny Dalglish's return, too, to replace Roy Hodgson. "The fans had stopped believing in the team. Now, with Kenny, they sing his song 10 times every game." Believable? No. "Unbelievable."

So too the goal that first catapulted him into the country's consciousness, that volley at Molineux. "After the game, I went home, straight on to the internet and watched it 20 times. But it was a lucky goal."

Another recurring theme. "I am a lucky guy," he says, when discussing team-mates past and present. "I played with Vitor Baia at Porto. He won more titles than any player in history." He will not, though, be drawn on who is the best he has played alongside. "Too difficult. Sorry. Lucho. Cristiano Ronaldo. Lisandro. But I like Stevie [Gerrard]."

Conscious of his own good fortune, capable of drawing pleasure from all he has achieved. Meireles is a reservoir of positivity. His first few months in England, though, must nearly have drained it.

His transfer, he freely admits, was "a dream". "I always dreamed of playing in the Premier League," he says. "But [I never thought] for a top club. Maybe a middle club. To play in Liverpool, it is fantastic.

The supporters. Wow. I want to win every game because they deserve it."

Especially after what they, and he, went through earlier this season. By October, Meireles, pursued for the last three years by Internazionale, Sevilla and Marseille, found himself in a side sitting 18th in the league.

He is adamant Liverpool's ostracism from the Champions League did not negatively impact his view of the club. "When Liverpool make you an offer, there is only one answer," he insists. "When my agent told me it was a possibility, I said I go now. Now."

Nor, more surprisingly, did the relegation battle he found himself embroiled in. There are no regrets.

"Did I expect it? No. Never in my life. Never," he says. "But I enjoy things more now. In Portugal, at my first club Boavista, I had to fight and fight to be in a good position. Then at Porto, we played so well, we had the best players in the best team. I won 10 titles. Then I came here, and we had this season."

Meireles, playing out of his homeland for the first time, might have found his expectations confounded, his ambitions realigned to fit Liverpool's new reality, but while his surrounds were unfamiliar, his club's plight was less strange.

His ability to connect with a dropping ball would not suggest it, but perhaps Meireles does not have the greatest sense of timing. A boyhood fan of their great rivals Boavista - "I hated Porto" - he crossed the Douro in 2004. The summer after Jose Mourinho won the Champions League, left for Chelsea and took a raft of players with him.

"It is hard to lose a figure like him," he says. "That year, my first at Porto, we won nothing. We had three coaches. But that is normal when you have had two fantastic years, winning everything. It is difficult to build a new team. But the second year was perfect.

"It is like Liverpool. This is a difficult year. New coach, new players. But I think next year we will have more chance to fight for better places. It takes time to be perfect."

Hodgson, summarily dismissed by Fenway Sports Group, the club's owners, in January was never afforded that time. Meireles will not speak ill of him - "He brought me here. I like him. I need to thank him" - but will acknowledge that Dalglish's more aesthetic style suits him better.

That is hardly a surprise. Meireles, muscular but slight, is not built for combat, but for grace. "In Portugal, we say it is better to be small and good, than big and bad," he says. United should not expect him to shrink away from challenges today. "Sometimes you need to tackle. "But it is more how you read the game."

And it helps when you have a dragon on your shoulder. Offering protection.