Esmaël Gonçalves

A Portuguese footballer Esmaël Ruti Tavares Cruz da Silva Gonçalves plays for Scottish side St.Mirren. He was born on 25 June 1991 in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau.

The footballer was born in Guinea-Bissau, but his family moved to Portugal, when Esmaël was three. His football career started at Boavista, where he spent three years, before moving to France. The player was invited to trial at Nice. Even before the contract was signed, Gonçalves caught an attention of Liverpool from England. Nevertheless, he preferred to train at the academy of the French club, where he was groomed during two years. In the 2010/2011 season he earned promotion to the reserves in the Championnat de France amateur. He spent the first half of the season as a reserve player, but that period was very fortunate for the Portuguese player. In January 2011, his professional debut happened in a match against Bordeaux. His first professional contract was signed in the summer 2011 for a term of three years with Nice. Gonçalves was officially promoted to the main squad for the 2011/2012 season. His first appearance happened in a match with Evian, when Esmaël came on the field from the bench. In two week time, he appeared as a substitute in a game against Brest. In the summer 2012, Esmaël opted to join Rio Ave. Six months later though the player moved to Scotland and joined St.Mirren. A loan move to APOEL Nicosia followed.

Despite the fact that the footballer was born in the Guinea-Bissau Esmaël has the Portuguese citizenship. So from 2007 to 2010, he used to be the representative of the Portugal national U-17 team. In 2010, he was capped to perform for the U-20 team in the 2011 FIFA U-20 World Cup. But Esmaël was out of shape at that period and so he wasn’t selected to take part in the tournament.