Pepe (footballer, born 1983)

Képler Laveran Lima Ferreira (born 26 February 1983), commonly known as Pepe (Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈpɛpi]), is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays for Spanish club Real Madrid and the Portuguese national team as a central defender. During his professional career he has played for Marítimo, Porto and Real Madrid, with individual and team success with the latter two clubs. A physically strong and tenacious defender, he is known for his aggressive challenges and for his violent behaviour on the pitch.

Born in Brazil, Pepe has represented Portugal over 60 times, playing at two World Cups and two European Championships.

Club career

Marítimo

Born in Maceió, Alagoas, Pepe started playing football with local Sport Club Corinthians Alagoano. At the age of 18, alongside teammate Ezequias, he moved to Portugal and signed with C.S. Marítimo on the island of Madeira, spending the vast majority of his first season with the B-team.

After being promoted to the main squad for the 2002–03 season, under Russian manager Anatoliy Byshovets, Pepe rarely missed a game, playing in several positions including defensive midfielder.

Real Madrid C.F.

Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (Spanish pronunciation: [reˈal maˈðɾið ˈkluβ ðe ˈfuðβol]; Royal Madrid Football Club), commonly known as Real Madrid, or simply as Real, is a professional football club based in Madrid, Spain.

Founded in 1902 as Madrid Football Club, the team has traditionally worn a white home kit since inception. The word Real is Spanish for Royal and was bestowed to the club by King Alfonso XIII in 1920 together with the royal crown in the emblem. The team has played its home matches in the 81,044-capacity Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in downtown Madrid since 1947. Unlike most European sporting entities, Real Madrid's members (socios) have owned and operated the club throughout its history.

The club is the most valuable sports team in the world, worth €2.5 billion ($3.4 billion) and the world's highest-earning football club for 2013–14, with an annual revenue of €549.5 million. The club is one of the most widely supported teams in the world. Real Madrid is one of three founding members of the Primera División that have never been relegated from the top division, along with Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona. The club holds many long-standing rivalries, most notably El Clásico with Barcelona and the El Derbi madrileño with Atlético Madrid.

Pepe

Pepe may refer to:

People

Below is a selection of notable people. For a longer list of famous people, see the Interwiki link Pepe.

Politicians

Musicians

Sportsmen

Portugal national football team

The Portugal national football team (Portuguese: Seleção Portuguesa de Futebol) represents Portugal in association football and is controlled by the Portuguese Football Federation, the governing body for football in Portugal. Portugal's home ground is the Estádio Nacional in Oeiras (however, many recent games have been played at the Estádio da Luz), and their most recent head coach is Fernando Santos. Their first World Cup appearance, in the 1966 FIFA World Cup, saw them reach the semi-finals, losing 2–1 at Wembley to the eventual world champions, England, and defeating the Soviet Union 2–1 to claim a third-place finish. The next two times Portugal qualified for the World Cup were 1986 and 2002, going out in the first round both times. In the 1986 tournament, players went on strike over prize money and refused to train between their first and second games.

In 2003, the Portuguese Football Federation hired Luiz Felipe Scolari, who led Portugal to the final of UEFA Euro 2004, a tournament hosted in Portugal, where they lost to Greece, and to their second World Cup semi-final in the 2006 World Cup finishing fourth place. Scolari left after Euro 2008 and was replaced by Carlos Queiroz. He led Portugal to the second round of the 2010 World Cup before they were defeated by the eventual champions Spain. Because of poor results in the games that would follow, Queiroz was fired and the Federation hired ex-Sporting Clube de Portugal coach Paulo Bento, who led the national team to the semi-finals of Euro 2012, where they were defeated by eventual champions Spain in the penalty shootout after a 0–0 result during regular and extra time.

February 26

February 26 is the 57th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 308 days remaining until the end of the year (309 in leap years).

Events