Paulo Ferreira came from humble beginnings. From playing in Estoril Praia, with stops in Vit\u00f3ria de Set\u00fabal, Porto and Chelsea, the Cascais born Chelsea icon won it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his first three seasons, Ferreira played in the second division of Portugal. Two good years at Estoril (1998 and 1999) made good impressions with \u201cthe Sadinos\u201d (Vitoria de Set\u00fabal\u2019s nickname) board, who signed him for the 2000-01 season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the 2000-01 season, Ferreira was called up to the U21 of Portugal. The then Portugal U21 coach needed someone to play at Right Back (Ferreira was often playing in the \u201c8\u201d position) and he did. Little did he know, this was a career changing moment. Jorge Jesus, who was Vit\u00f3ria de Set\u00fabal\u2019s head coach at that time, started using him as a RB for the whole season – which was key to secure the promotion to the top flight, with a second place finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rise to stardom came in 2002-03, where FC Porto paid 2.000.000\u20ac for him to move to \u201cthe Invicta\u201d. He came as a backup, but a good run in the preseason convinced Mourinho to make him the starter RB. In his first Porto season he won the treble – but not the just any regular treble – a treble in which included the, at that time called UEFA Cup (now Europa League), the Portuguese League, and the Portuguese Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His 2003-04 season was even better. Despite losing the European Super Cup final vs AC Milan (Shevchenko really had the upper hand that game), he was vital in the Champions League Final, as he assisted Carlos Alberto in the first goal where he and Porto would go and win 3-0 vs AS Monaco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the 2004-05 season 20.000.000\u20ac move to Chelsea was completed. He followed the steps of then teammate Ricardo Carvalho and coach Jos\u00e9 Mourinho. In his first year (arguably his best one) with the club he was part of the team that won the league for the first time in 50 years. He was starter for most of the season, but during the later stages, he picked up an injury, Nevertheless his presence on the field was one of the reasons Chelsea won the league in that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the season went on, he was getting less minutes, but he showed his professionalism and \u201cteam first spirit\u201d (arguably one of his better traits) that make not only the staff and the club, but the fans like him in the first place,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He won a total of 3 Premier Leagues (2005, 2006, 2010), 4 FA Cups (2007, 2009 ,2010, 2012), 2 League Cups (2005, 2007), 2 Community Shields (2005,2009), one Champions League (2012) and one Europa League (2013).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the national team, his career was bitter sweet – he was on the bench for most of Euro 2004, after a poor performance in the opening game vs Greece. He would be on the bench again for the 2006 WC.At that time, Scolari preferred to play Miguel as the starting RB. He played as a left back for the Euro 2008, in all 4 games and appeared in just 1 game in the 2010 WC – total caps for Portugal: 62.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He retired at the end of the 2012-13 season. He played in a total of 491 games (club + national team) and scored 8 goals. Quite tall (for a RB) and a skinny player; I remember that Paulo was quite a unique player. He was really good at pushing forward and making deep runs on the flanks. Back to his Porto times, he would often cross to the striker Derlei, which would often create a lot of chances. He was also a very good defender – very good in closing down spaces and tackling the opposition attackers. I’m sure in today\u2019s game, he would be a very good fullback. Paulo Ferreira achieved stardom at Porto and icon status at Chelsea. Nonetheless, he\u2019s truly one of the greatest Portuguese players of all time, probably, top 3 RB of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sticker wise, since he was playing in the second tier in his early days, his rookie sticker came out in the 2001-02 season, in the Portuguese league – 2001-2002 Panini Futebol – sticker #398.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sticker features the Bonfim Stadium on the background (instead of a background color or pattern) which to me is a feature that\u2019s been lost in modern releases. It\u2019s a simple yet beautiful design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a must sticker for every portuguese league collector\/fan or by Chelasea hardocore fan. Hard to get your hands on these nowadays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Price target: 10-15$<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paulo Ferreira came from humble beginnings. From playing in Estoril Praia, with stops in Vit\u00f3ria de Set\u00fabal, Porto and Chelsea, the Cascais born Chelsea icon won it all. In his first three seasons, Ferreira played in the second division of Portugal. Two good years at Estoril (1998 and 1999) made good impressions with \u201cthe Sadinos\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[58],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/soccerstickersfc.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/soccerstickersfc.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/soccerstickersfc.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soccerstickersfc.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soccerstickersfc.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/soccerstickersfc.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2792,"href":"https:\/\/soccerstickersfc.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions\/2792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soccerstickersfc.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/soccerstickersfc.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soccerstickersfc.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/soccerstickersfc.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}