Daniel Mendes

Daniel Mendes
Personnel
Surname	Daniel Freire Mendes
birthday	July 14, 1981
place of birth	São Paulo ,  Brazil
position	striker
Juniors
Years	station
1990-1994	Palmeiras São Paulo
1995	Corinthians São Paulo
1996-1997	CA Juventus
1997-2000	Botafogo FR
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1998-2003	Botafogo FR	34 0(2)
2003	Kalmar FF	26 (14)
2004	Ulsan Hyundai	5 0(0)
2005	Atlético Nacional
2006	Degerfors IF	16 (10)
2006-2008	AIK Solna	52 (11)
2009-2014	Kalmar FF	103 (24)
2013	→  GAIS Göteborg  (loan)	13 0(7)
2014-2015	Minnesota United	51 (15)
1 Only league games are given. As of December 23, 2015

Daniel Freire Mendes ( pronunciation : [ 'mẽⁿdʒis ]; born July 14, 1981 in São Paulo ) is a Brazilian football player . The striker has played a large part of his career so far in Sweden.

Career

Mendes started playing soccer at Palmeiras São Paulo . He came to Botafogo FR in 1997 via Corinthians São Paulo and CA Juventus . With the U-17 team of the club he won the Copa Juvenil Do Estado Do Rio De Janeiro in 1999 , where he was the team's top scorer with 14 goals. A year later he succeeded in winning the title in the Campeonato Carioca De Juniores with the club's youth team .

In 2003 Mendes moved to Sweden for the first time. For Kalmar FF he joined the Superettan and was one of the top scorers of the season with 14 goals this season . He made a decisive contribution to the club's promotion to the Allsvenskan . At the end of the season, however, he left the club and moved to Japan to Ulsan Hyundai . After only a year he moved on to Atlético Nacional , where he again only played a year.

In 2006 Mendes returned to Sweden. At the second division club Degerfors IF he showed his well-known scoring danger and scored ten goals in the first half of the 2006 second division season . Therefore, they became aware of him in a higher class and in July of that year the Allsvenskan club AIK Solna recruited the striker. At his new club, however, he could not prevail despite four goals in 14 games until the end of the season. In the following years he was mainly used as a substitute, where he was in the 2008 season with five goals behind the Argentine Iván Óbolo , who scored ten goals this season, together with the Slovenian Miran Burgić was the club's second top scorer.

Mendes decided to change clubs at the end of the season and returned to Kalmar FF after five years. He signed a three-year contract with the reigning champions. With his first competitive goal for the new employer in March 2009, he won the Supercup with a 1-0 win against cup winners IFK Göteborg . In the beginning he found himself a regular player during the season after he had temporarily failed to score on the bench. Ultimately, with eight goals this season, he was one of the team's most dangerous players and achieved participation in the first qualifying round of the 2010/11 UEFA Europa League with the club in fourth place .

In his second season at KFF, Mendes was initially less dangerous, so he had to take a seat on the bench for a while. In the game against the hitherto undefeated leaders Helsingborgs IF on May 16, he wrote Swedish football history: With his goal to make it 1-0 6.4 seconds after kick-off, he scored the fastest goal in the history of the Allsvenskan. In the same game, he was expelled for assault. Nevertheless, he fought his way back and reached the final of the national cup with the team in autumn 2011. Despite a goal from Erik Israelsson , the game was lost with a 3-1 loss to champions Helsingborgs IF.

In 2013 it was awarded to GAIS Göteborg . In 2014 he was initially loaned to Minnesota United . He has been under contract there since October 9, 2014.

Web links

• Daniel Mendes in the database of weltfussball.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ rsssfbrasil.com: "Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas - Títulos Conquistados em Outras Categorias" (accessed on April 23, 2009)
2. ↑ sr.se: "Daniel Mendes lämnar DIF"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on April 23, 2009)  
3. ↑ sportal.nu: "Daniel Mendes klar för Kalmar" ( Memento of the original dated February 7, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on April 23, 2009) 
4. ↑ aftonbladet.se: "Mendes fixade titeln i KFF-comebacken" (accessed on April 23, 2009)
5. ↑ eurosport.se: "Rekordsnabb Mendes bröt Helsingborgs svit" (accessed on May 17, 2010)