Jose Sa

José Pedro Malheiro de Sá is a Portuguese professional footballer who was born on 17 January 1993 in Braga, Portugal.

Sa plays as a goalkeeper for FC Porto, a Portuguese football club that mainly competes in Primeira Liga.

Background

Having born in Braga, José first joined the local club Palmeiras Braga at the age of 9. He spent seven years with the club, meanwhile his body had formed to a large extent.

In 2009, he united with Merelinense FC which plays in Campeonato de Portugal, a local league in Portugal.

Before finally joining Marítimo in 2011, he had also played a few games for Lisbon based FC Benfica.

Debut

After having a successful youth career with several clubs, he had already caught everyone's eyes. On 23 January 2013, he made his professional debut with the B-team of Marítimo.

Playing in a match of the second division championship of LigaPro, he didn't let any shot enter in the goalpost and ruined every effort of opposition team, U.D. Oliveirense.

However, his team also couldn't score any goal and match had ended up on a goalless draw.

Before getting his first call up to the Portugal U-21 team on 6 August 2013, he had also represented his country in 2013 FIFA U-20 World Cup.

He played his first U-21 game on 14 August against Switzerland, joining his teammates on the field in the second half of the game.

Rise to glory

After making his debut for Portugal U-21, he played several friendlies and made an instant impression with his performance.

Sá was first choice of the team's management to play 2015 UEFA European U-21 Championship.

He performed up to the expectations throughout the tournament and kept clean sheets in all the games except one. However in the final of the tournament, his team lost to Sweden on penalties and could only finish as a runner-up.

On 25 May 2017, Sá received his maiden call up to the senior team of Portugal to feature in 2017 FIFA Confederation Cup. On 3 June 2017, he played a friendly for Portugal senior team against Cyprus, keeping his first international clean sheet.

On 10 June he claimed one more clean sheet against Latvia in World Cup Qualifiers. He has played 9 games for Portugal till date, keeping 6 clean sheets.

Club career

Sá has played 135 games of various leagues including Liga Pro, Taça CTT, Liga Nos and Champions League. He is currently playing for FC Porto. However, during his initial period with the club, he was not a primary choice and served just as a understudy to Iker Casillas, Spanish international.

Sá played his first game of UEFA Champions League on 17 October 2017.