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LuÃs Boa Morte
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Luís Boa Morte Pereira, pron. , (born 4 August 1977 in Lisbon) is a Portuguese footballer, currently playing for West Ham United, an English club in the Premier League.
He mainly plays as an attacking wide forward although he has played as a conventional centre forward in the past. Amongst fans, he is principally known as 'Boa', 'The Crazy Racoon', and the 'The Dead Snake', (due to the general mistake of translating his surname into English) .
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Encyclopedia
Luís Boa Morte Pereira, pron. , (born 4 August 1977 in Lisbon) is a Portuguese footballer, currently playing for West Ham United, an English club in the Premier League.
He mainly plays as an attacking wide forward although he has played as a conventional centre forward in the past. Amongst fans, he is principally known as 'Boa', 'The Crazy Racoon', and the 'The Dead Snake', (due to the general mistake of translating his surname into English) . His surname, in fact, in Portuguese means good death .
Club career
Sporting
He started his professional career in August 1996 with Sporting, spending time on loan to junior club Lourinhanense.
Arsenal
Boa Morte made his debut in English football for Arsenal when he became one of Arsène Wenger's first signings for the club, joining on a fee of £1.75 million.
He made his debut on 23 August 1997 as a substitute at Southampton. During Arsenal's double winning 1997-98 season he made 15 league appearances, mostly as substitute and four in the FA cup, although he did not appear in the final itself.
The following season he was a fairly regular squad member, usually as substitute in the early part of the season, with a few European Cup appearances, including against Panathinaikos on 9 December 1998, when he scored Arsenal's third goal. His final appearance for Arsenal was as a second half substitute away to Sunderland on 14 August 1999.
Southampton
After failing to break into Arsenal's first-team on a regular basis, in August 1999 Boa Morte was signed for Southampton by Dave Jones for a fee of around £500,000 with further payments to be based on appearances.
In only his second appearance for Southampton, away to Middlesbrough on 11 September 1999, he was sent off for handling the ball in the goalmouth in the 77th minute, with Paul Gascoigne scoring the resultant penalty as Middlesbrough went on to win 3-2.
In January 2000, Dave Jones was replaced as manager by Glenn Hoddle, who dropped Boa Morte from the team. After Hoddle's appointment Boa Morte only made three further appearances and in July 2000 he had a trial at Fulham following which he moved to Craven Cottage, initially on a season long loan. As a result the first instalment on the fee due to Arsenal was never paid.
In his season at The Dell he made a total of 17 appearances, mostly as substitute, with one goal - a thundering left foot drive at Watford in a 2-3 defeat on 28 December 1999.
Fulham
In his first season at Fulham, he helped Jean Tigana win the 2000-01 Division 1 making 39 league appearances, scoring 18 goals as Fulham ran away with the Championship with a total of 101 points.
His contributions to the Championship winning season, resulted in him being signed permanently in June 2001 (on a fee of £1.7 million paid to Arsenal), despite Southampton's attempts to bring him back after the expiry of the loan arrangement.
In Fulham's first two seasons in the Premiership, he was not able to replicate his form of the Championship winning season, scoring only three goals, although his form returned to some extent in 2003-04, since when he has averaged eight goals per season. He was also voted Player of the Season for 2004–05.
In August 2005, he was chased strongly by Newcastle United but pledged his future to Fulham and was made team captain. His crowning moment in a Fulham shirt was when he scored the only goal in the 1-0 win over Chelsea in the West London derby on 19 March 2006 at Craven Cottage.
He became a favourite amongst Fulham's supporters whilst he played for them, for his impassioned, never-say-die and sometimes aggressive style of play - although this has lead to problems with referees. Even though his form dipped towards the end of his Fulham career he is still considered something of a cult hero there due to his ability to take players on, his ability to cause panic like an unpinned grenade in the opposition ranks and his emotional character, a trait that strengthened the bond between him and the fans.
West Ham United
Boa Morte signed for West Ham United in January 2007 on a three and a half year contract for an undisclosed fee, which is believed to be around £5 million.
He played his first game for the Hammers in an FA Cup tie against Brighton & Hove Albion, setting up two goals and on 13 January 2007 in the Premier League against former team Fulham. On 28 April 2007, he scored his first goal, and, so far, only goal for the club in an important 0-3 win against Wigan Athletic at the JJB Stadium.
International career
Due to a number of impressive performances for Fulham, Boa Morte was called up to the Portuguese national team, winning his first cap in April 2001 against France.
Despite an impressive season at club level, Boa Morte was disappointed to be left out of his country’s squad for the 2004 European Championships on home soil. However, the winger was part of Portugal’s World Cup 2006 campaign in Germany, playing in the 2-1 victory over Mexico on 21 June 2006.
Career statistics
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|1997-98||rowspan="3"|Arsenal||rowspan="3"|Premier League||15||0||4||0||1||2||1||0||21||2
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|1998-99||8||0||1||1||2||0||3||1||14||2
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|1999-00||2||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||2||0
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|1999-00||Southampton||Premier League||14||1||1||0||2||0||colspan="2"|-||17||1
|-
|2000-01||rowspan="7"|Fulham||First Division||39||18||1||0||6||3||colspan="2"|-||46||21
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|2001-02||rowspan="6"|Premier League||23||1||3||0||3||1||1||0||30||2
|-
|2002-03||29||2||2||0||1||1||11||2||43||5
|-
|2003-04||33||9||5||1||1||0||colspan="2"|-||39||10
|-
|2004-05||31||8||5||1||3||0||colspan="2"|-||39||9
|-
|2005-06||35||6||1||0||1||1||colspan="2"|-||37||7
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|2006-07||15||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||15||0|
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|2006-07||rowspan="3"|West Ham United||rowspan="3"|Premier League||14||1||2||0||colspan="2"|-||colspan="2"|-||16||1
|-
|2007-08||27||0||1||0||4||0||colspan="2"|-||32||0
|-
|2008-09||||||||||||||||||||
285||46||26||3||24||8||16||3||351||60
285||46||26||3||24||8||16||3||351||60
|}
Honours
Arsenal
Fulham
External links
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