Luis Nani Profile

Lu­is Car­los Al­meida da Cunha, born Lis­bon, Por­tugal, Nov­ember 17, 1986. Dur­ing his stay at Man­chester Uni­ted, Lu­is Nani won the Pre­mier Lea­gue in 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2013, the Lea­gue Cup in 2009 and 2010, the FA Com­munity Shield in 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011, the UEFA Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue in 2008, as well as the FIFA Club Wor­ld Cup in 2008. 

A highly tal­en­ted wing­er, Lu­is Nani ini­ti­ated his pro­fes­sion­al foot­balling ca­reer wi­th loc­al out­fit Re­al Mas­sama be­fore he joi­ned for­ces wi­th Por­tuguese Primeira Liga te­am Sport­ing Clube de Por­tugal where he de­b­uted as a sec­ond ha­lf sub­sti­tute for de­fens­ive mid­fielder Cus­todio Casto in a 1–0 Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue qual­i­fy­ing de­feat ag­ainst Itali­an Serie A si­de Ud­inese at Es­ta­dio Jose Al­valade on the 10th of Au­gust 2005. At the be­gin­ning of the 2007-08 cam­paign, Nani was bro­ught to Man­chester Uni­ted by Old Traf­ford Head Coach Sir Al­ex Fer­guson for an es­tim­ated trans­fer fee of £14 mil­lion and the speedy flanker made his fir­st ap­pear­ance for The Red Dev­ils in a 6–0 friendly win ag­ainst Chinese out­fit Shen­zhen Ruby at the Ma­cau Sta­dium on the 23rd of Ju­ly 2007, scor­ing the third goal of the en­counter two min­utes ahead of the break. He was han­ded his Pre­miership de­but for Man­chester Uni­ted in a goal­less draw ag­ainst Read­ing at Old Traf­ford on the 12th of Au­gust the same year and sco­red his fir­st Pre­mier Lea­gue goal for the club when he net­ted the win­ner in a 1-0 vic­tory at ho­me to Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur four­teen days la­ter. Dur­ing his in­aug­ur­al sea­son at The Theatre of Dreams, he sco­red four goals in 41 fir­st te­am mat­ches and won the Pre­mier Lea­gue and the Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue, as well as the Com­munity Shield. He also played a vi­tal part in the Man­chester Uni­ted te­am which won the Pre­miership in 2009 and 2011, the Lea­gue Cup in 2009 and 2010, and the Com­munity Shield in 2010 and 2011. In the 2–1 Pre­mier Lea­gue win over Ar­senal at Emir­ates Sta­dium on the 22nd of Jan­uary 2012, Nani suf­fered an in­jury to his foot from a tack­le by French de­fender Lau­rent Kos­cielny and was out for al­most three months, but he nev­er­the­less ma­naged to make 40 fir­st class ap­pear­ances dur­ing the 2012-13 term. There was, how­ever, a cer­tain hint of fu­ture dis­ap­point­ment when he fell out of fa­vour wi­th new­ly hired man­ager Da­vid Moyes the fol­low­ing sea­son, and he on­ly made thir­teen fir­st te­am ap­pear­ances un­der the for­mer Ever­ton boss.

Ap­proach­ing the vet­er­an sta­ge, Lu­is Nani´s days were numb­ered when Dutch head coach Louis van Gaal was ap­poin­ted man­ager of Man­chester Uni­ted on the 19th of May 2014, and fol­low­ing a loan stint at for­mer em­ploy­er Sport­ing Clube de Por­tugal dur­ing the 2014-15 sea­son, he joi­ned Turk­ish si­de Fen­er­bahce for a trans­fer fee of £4.25 mil­lion in the sum­mer of 2015 af­ter hav­ing con­trib­uted 25 goals in 147 Pre­miership ap­pear­ances for the Old Traf­ford club.  At Suk­ru Sara­co­glu Sta­dium in Istan­bul, Nani teamed up wi­th pre­vi­ous Man­chester Uni­ted goal plun­der­er Robin van Per­sie, but af­ter ac­cu­mu­lat­ing 28 Turk­ish Su­per Lea­gue ap­pear­ances for The Yel­low Ca­nar­ies dur­ing the 2015-16 sea­son, he sig­ned wi­th Span­ish La Liga te­am Va­lencia for a fee es­tim­ated to be ar­ound £7.2 mil­lion at the be­gin­ning of the 2016-17 cam­paign. He was shipped out on loan to Itali­an out­fit Lazio the fol­low­ing year, tho­ugh, and made 18 Serie A ap­pear­ances for The White and Sky Blues dur­ing the 2017-18 sea­son be­fore he de­cided to re­join Sport­ing Clube de Por­tugal in the sum­mer of 2018. A Por­tuguese in­ter­na­tion­al, Lu­is Nani cel­eb­rated his seni­or de­but for The Nav­ig­at­ors by scor­ing his country´s sec­ond goal six min­utes pa­st the hour-ma­rk in a 4-2 friendly fix­ture de­feat to Den­mark at Idraett­s­parken in Copen­ha­gen on the 1st of Septem­ber 2006, and he was an im­port­ant mem­ber of the te­am which won the Euro­pean Cham­pi­on­ship in Fran­ce in 2016. Lu­is Nani: “I think that it is very com­mon in Por­tugal to find tech­nic­al play­ers, cre­at­ive play­ers, and not so much play­ers who are pure tar­get men. If it is a cul­tur­al or ge­net­ic thing, I really do not know. What you have to see is that the loc­al people really are not that tall so it is tough to find big and strong stri­kers.” Lu­is Nani Play­ing Ca­reer: Sport­ing Clube de Por­tugal, Man­chester Uni­ted, Sport­ing Clube de Por­tugal, Fen­er­bahce, Va­lencia, Lazio, Sport­ing Clube de Por­tugal. Man­aging Ca­reer: None.

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