Anderson Lu\u00eds de Souza (born 27 August 1977), known as Deco, played as an attacking midfielder or central midfielder.<\/p>\n
Deco is one of the few players to have won the UEFA Champions League with two clubs, with Porto in 2004 and Barcelona in 2006. He was named UEFA Club Footballer of the Year and UEFA Best Midfielder in the Champions League winning season. 2004. He was Man of the Match in the Champions League final in 2004. He was awarded the Ballon d'Or at the 2006 Club World Cup and the Man of the Match Award in the final, although Barcelona lost to Internacional.<\/p>\n
Born and raised in Brazil but acquired Portuguese citizenship in 2002 after completing five years of residence in Portugal. He then chose to play for the Portuguese national team. He played 75 games for the Portuguese national team, participating in two European Championships and two FIFA World Cups, reaching the Euro 2004 final and finishing fourth in the 2006 World Cup.<\/p>\n
Deco announced his retirement on August 26, 2013, after an injury.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anderson Lu\u00eds de Souza (born 27 August 1977), known as Deco, played as an attacking midfielder or central midfielder... Continue reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[20,22,21,13,12,15],"class_list":["post-367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-sport-heroes","tag-barcelona","tag-brazil","tag-chelsea","tag-deco","tag-porto","tag-portugal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t