Zé Roberto

José Roberto da Silva Júnior (born 6 July 1974), commonly known as Zé Roberto, is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays for Palmeiras as a left wing back or as a midfielder.

Club career

Early career

Zé Roberto started the youth ranks of Palestra de São Bernardo but it was while playing for Portuguesa, as a left-back, that he became known throughout Brazil finishing as runner-up in 1996 Campeonato Brasileiro Série A.

He then joined Real Madrid in 1997 for a brief spell, where he helped them win La Liga, before moving back to Brazil to play for Flamengo. In an interview in 2012, Zé Roberto spoke of his decision to leave Madrid because of his ambition to play for Brazil at the World Cup in France and had limited opportunities to prove his talents in Spain.

Zé played for Flamengo in 1998, playing for the Gávea alongside big footballing names such as Romário and Palhinha. He played twenty-four league games but failed to score any goals. His spell at Flamengo was very short, considering that in that same year 1998 he joined German side Bayer Leverkusen.

Robert

The name Robert is a Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic *χrōþi- "fame" and *berχta- "bright". Compare Old Dutch Robrecht and Old High German Hrodebert (a compound of hruod "fame, glory" and berht "bright"). It is also in use as a surname.

After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form Robert, where an Old English cognate form (Hrēodbēorht, Hrodberht, Hrēodbēorð, Hrœdbœrð, Hrœdberð) had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto.

Similar to the name, Richard, "Robert" is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic. It can be used as a French, Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian name as well.

Variations

Trivia

Robert, and also the name Joseph, were in the top 10 most given boys' names in the US for 47 years, from 1925 to 1972.

In Italy during the Second World War, the form of the name, Roberto, briefly acquired a new meaning derived from, and referring to the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis.