Juninho Pernambucano

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other Brazilians named Juninho, see Juninho (disambiguation).

Juninho Pernambucano
Personal information
Full name	Antônio Augusto Ribeiro Reis Júnior
Date of birth	January 30, 1975 (age 32)
Place of birth	Recife, Brazil
Height	1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Playing position	Midfielder
Club information
Current club	Olympique Lyonnais
Number	8
Youth clubs
{{{youthyears}}}	Náutico and Sport Recife
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1993-1994 1995-2001 2001-present	Sport Recife Vasco da Gama Olympique Lyonnais	25 (3) 110 (24) 128 (51)
National team2
1999-2006	Brazil	44 (7)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 23 March 2007. 2 National team caps and goals correct as of July 24, 2006. * Appearances (Goals)

Juninho (born January 30, 1975 in Recife), real name Antônio Augusto Ribeiro Reis Júnior, also known as Juninho Pernambucano or Pernambucano in southern France, is a Brazilian footballer who plays central midfielder and is the current captain of Olympique Lyonnais. He retired from his international career with the Brazilian national squad after Brazil's exit from the quarter-final of the 2006 World Cup saying he wants to make way for younger talents coming through the ranks in Brazil to build for the 2010 world cup. He is considered to be the one of the most skilled free-kick takers in the world, and arguably the one of the greatest ever with his uncanny strike rate of scoring from them. Juninho is also described as one of the best all-round midfielders in the world today. He is known to be capable of doing just about anything at all with equal amount of skill and precision such as his short and deep ball passing games, and also brings incredible mentality to the field with brilliant vision and tactical awareness.

Contents 1 Clubs 2 Honours 3 Trivia 4 Free Kicks 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Clubs

His career started with Sport Club do Recife. Juninho played 110 games with Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama, scoring 24 goals. He won the Brazilian Championship in 1997 and 2000, the Copa Libertadores in 1998 with Vasco and, in 2000, won the Brazilian silver Ball trophy.

Juninho is especially notable for his accurate, powerful and varied set pieces, having scored 32 free kicks for Olympique Lyonnais. He is amongst the world’s best in this area, recently demonstrated in March 2006, when he scored a freekick from 42 metres against AC Ajaccio. Pro Evolution Soccer 5, a popular football videogame paid tribute to his free-kick ability, giving him the maximum 99/99 rating for "free kick accuracy" and "curling". In addition, he is an effective passer, having provided many assists that led to goals. His leadership abilities have prompted Gérard Houllier to give him the captain's armband.

Before his arrival at Olympique Lyonnais, the club had never won the championship. Since his arrival, they have won it five seasons in a row.

[edit] Honours

• Pernambucano State championship in 1994 with Sport Club do Recife
• Brazilian championship in 1997 and 2000 with Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama
• Rio de Janeiro State championship in 1998 with Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama
• Copa Libertadores in 1998 with Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama
• Torneio Rio-São Paulo in 1999 with Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama
• Mercosur Cup in 2000 with Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama
• French Ligue 1 championship in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 with Olympique Lyonnais.
• Trophée Des Champions in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 with Olympique Lyonnais.
• Confederations Cup 2005 with Brazil national team

[edit] Trivia

• On September 7, 1999, Juninho became the first football player to play a top-level match in two different countries in the same day. He represented his country in the second half of the friendly between Brazil and Argentina in Porto Alegre, which Brazil won 4-2, playing about fifteen minutes. In spite of a delayed flight to Montevideo, he still arrived in Uruguay on time to feature in the second half of the Copa Mercosur match between Vasco and National.

• His nickname comes from a combination of the Brazilian diminutive "Juninho" which is commonly applied to any person with the name "Junior" and "Pernambucano" meaning someone born in the north-eastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco.

• Juninho learned to kick free-kicks with Mauro Galvão, a defensor for Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama in the early 90's, who was an instructor for the team during the time Juninho played there.
• He had married with Renata. The two had two kids: Giovanna (nine years old) and Maria Clara (three years old).

[edit] Free Kicks

His free-kicks differ from Beckham's or Riquelme's because although the kicking action is similar, Juninho's free kicks have less ball rotation but high air-speed. This makes use of any air drafts or wind which causes changing drag patterns on the seams of the ball. Thus the ball may move unpredictably or 'wobble' in the air. This makes him a particularly dangerous dead-ball specialist.

He says the reason he is so precise at free-kicks is due to the fact he use to play futsal where the goals are much smaller and therefore precision is required.^{[citation needed]}

Junihno is marked out as a unique player for his mastery of free-kicks. Much like players such as Beckham, Zidane, Siniša Mihajlovic, Rivaldo, or less recently Platini or Zico, Junihno has become renowned for this extraordinary expertise in dead-ball sitautions, conisdered by many observers to be the best free-kick taker in the world. Such a talent is, of course, a huge bonus for whatever team he plays for. For example, a survey by the sports daily L'Equipe from December 2006 revealed that 45% of Lyon's goals (at the time one of the best attacking teams in Europe) resulted - either directly or indirectly - from a dead-ball delivered by their Brazilian leader.

When preparing to face one of the Brazilan's free-kicks many goalkeepers ask their defense not to form a wall between the striker and the goal, believing that they have a greater chance of keeping out the shot if their view of the ball is not impeded. This tactic is only un-surprising due to not having been implemented earlier given Junihno's prolific scoring rate from such situations. Others, more traditionally, form a defensive wall which encroaches upon the taker of the free-kick, profiting from the carelessness of the referee not always paying strict attention to this tactic. According to the laws of the game the wall cannot approach within 9.15 metres (10 yards) of the ball, a rule that is difficult to enforce once the referee's back is turned. To cope with this rather unsporting behaviour Juninho declared at the start of 2006 that in training he now practised his free-kicks with walls only 8 metres away. This ethic of practice and hardwork has lead to him regularly achieving impressive statistics, proved by the below list of direct free-kicks he has scored whilst at Lyon :

#	Match	Competition	Season	Date	Minute
1	OL - FC Sochaux	Ligue 1	2001-2002	20 October 2001	82nd
2	OL - CS Sedan	Ligue 1	2002-2003	10 August 2002	44th
3	OL - RC Lens	Ligue 1	2002-2003	10 September 2002	32nd
4	OL - AJ Auxerre	Ligue 1	2002-2003	19 October 2002	37th
5	OL - AJ Auxerre	Ligue 1	2002-2003	19 October 2002	75th
6	OL - Stade Rennais	Ligue 1	2002-2003	22 February 2003	16th
7	OL - RC Lens	Ligue 1	2003-2004	27 September 2003	57nd
8	OL - OGC Nice	Ligue 1	2003-2004	1 November 2003	24th
9	Bayern Munich - OL	UEFA Champions League	2003-2004	5 November 2003	6nd
10	FC Metz - OL	Ligue 1	2003-2004	8 May 2004	22nd
11	OL - SC Bastia	Ligue 1	2003-2004	12 May 2004	36th
12	AS Saint-Étienne - OL	Ligue 1	2004-2005	3 October 2004	34th
13	AC Ajaccio - OL	Ligue 1	2004-2005	4 December 2004	87th
14	Viry-Châtillon - OL	French Cup	2004-2005	8 January 2005	27th
15	OL - FC Metz	Ligue 1	2004-2005	15 January 2005	84th
16	OL - Toulouse FC	Ligue 1	2004-2005	5 February 2005	2nd
17	OL - Toulouse FC	Ligue 1	2004-2005	5 Februaryr 2005	51st
18	Werder Bremen - OL	UEFA Champions League	2004-2005	23 February 2005	80th
19	OL - FC Istres	Ligue 1	2004-2005	12 March 2005	20nd
20	OL - Real Madrid	UEFA Champions League	2005-2006	13 September 2005	25nd
21	OL - AC Ajaccio	Ligue 1	2005-2006	16 October 2005	49th
22	OL - Olympiacos CFP	UEFA Champions League	2005-2006	19 October 2005	4th
23	Olympiacos CFP - OL	UEFA Champions League	2005-2006	1 November 2005	41st
24	OL - FC Nantes	Ligue 1	2005-2006	17 February 2006	9th
25	PSV Eindhoven - OL	UEFA Champions League	2005-2006	21 February 2006	64th
26	AC Ajaccio - OL	Ligue 1	2005-2006	4 March 2006	61st
27	OL - Le Mans	Ligue 1	2005-2006	13 May 2006	42nd
28	OL - ESTAC	Ligue 1	2006-2007	9 September 2006	87th
29	Dynamo Kiev - OL	UEFA Champions League	2006-2007	17 October 2006	31st
30	OM - OL	Ligue 1	2006-2007	22 October 2006	20th
31	RC Lens - OL	Ligue 1	2006-2007	16 December 2006	22nd
32	Aviron Bayonnais Football Club - OL	French Cup	2006-2007	7 January 2007	75th

[edit] References

The majority of the latter secton on free-kicks has been translated from The French Wikipedia

[edit] External links

• Juninho Pernambucano Tactical Formations at Football-Lineups.com

• Juninho Pernambucano profile, detailed club and national team statistics, honours (palmares) and timeline

	Brazil squad - 2006 FIFA World Cup Quarter-finalists
1 Dida | 2 Cafu | 3 Lúcio | 4 Juan | 5 Emerson | 6 Roberto Carlos | 7 Adriano | 8 Kaká | 9 Ronaldo | 10 Ronaldinho | 11 Zé Roberto | 12 Rogério Ceni | 13 Cicinho | 14 Luisão | 15 Cris | 16 Gilberto | 17 Gilberto Silva | 18 Mineiro | 19 Juninho | 20 Ricardinho | 21 Fred | 22 Júlio César | 23 Robinho | Coach: Parreira

Olympique Lyonnais - Current Squad
1 Coupet | 2 Clerc | 3 Cris | 4 Müller | 5 Caçapa | 6 Källström | 7 Baroš | 8 Juninho | 10 Malouda | 11 Fred | 12 Réveillère | 14 Govou | 15 Diarra | 18 Ben Arfa | 19 Benzema | 20 Abidal | 21 Tiago | 22 Wiltord | 23 Berthod | 25 Hartock | 28 Toulalan | 29 Squillaci | 30 Vercoutre | 31 Hima | 34 Rémy | 36 Idangar | 38 Benhamida | 39 Bettiol | Manager: Houllier