Lucas Leiva

Lucas
Lucas Leiva in 2012
Personnel
Surname	Lucas Pezzini Leiva
birthday	January 9, 1987
place of birth	Dourados ,  Brazil
size	179 cm
position	Defensive Midfield
Juniors
Years	station
2004-2005	Gremio Porto Alegre
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2005-2007	Gremio Porto Alegre	38 (4)
2007-2017	Liverpool FC	247 (1)
2017–	Lazio Rome	87 (2)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
2006-2007	Brazil U20	9 (6)
2008	Brazil U23	7 (0)
2007-2013	Brazil	24 (0)
1 Only league games are given. Status: February 29, 2020

Lucas Pezzini Leiva (born January 9, 1987 in Dourados , Mato Grosso do Sul ) is a Brazilian football player . He is mainly used in central midfield and has been under contract with Lazio since 2017 . From 2007 to 2017 he played for Liverpool FC .

He is the nephew of the former Brazilian international Leivinha . In addition to Brazilian citizenship, he also has Italian and British citizenship .

Career

Gremio

Lucas began his career at the Brazilian club Gremio Porto Alegre . He played his first game on October 22, 2005 against Náutico Capibaribe . In this he became champions of the Série B with a 1-0 win . The next year he won the state championship of Rio Grande do Sul with his club and was third in the Série A. He was also the youngest player to win the Bola de Ouro , the award for the best player in the championship. Numerous top European clubs became aware of Lucas. In the Copa Libertadores 2007 he penetrated with Gremio in the finals, which were lost to Boca Juniors .

Liverpool

For the 2007/08 season , Lucas moved to Liverpool at the end of the season . In the first few games he was mostly used as a substitute, only towards the end of November he was used by coach Rafael Benítez in the starting XI. On January 27, 2008, Lucas scored his first goal for Liverpool FC in a game in the FA Cup , making him the club's first Brazilian goalscorer. He missed the start of the 2008/09 season because of his participation in the Olympic Games with the Brazilian national team. Despite the great competition in his position, he was frequently used by Benítez, but criticism of Lucas was loud during the season. Benítez stood in front of his player. In the 2009/10 season , Lucas had his place on the team after Xabi Alonso's move to Real Madrid .

In a test match against 1. FC Kaiserslautern in preparation for the 2010/11 season, Leiva led Liverpool FC as team captain. After a collision on December 1, 2011 with Juan Mata during a game in the Premier League against Chelsea, he was injured until the end of the 2011/12 season. During the 2013/14 season, Lucas Leiva stood out for his good performances and thus returned to the squad of the Brazilian national team. At the beginning of the 2014/15 season he was initially not used, but he found himself a little later in nine consecutive competitive games in the starting XI, with Liverpool only losing one game. Although rumors of an exit surfaced, Lucas Leiva stayed with Liverpool and played for Liverpool for the 300th time in the league cup semi-finals against Stoke City on January 26, 2016 . The end of the 2016/17 season marked the end of his tenth season at Liverpool FC. As a result, Lucas Leiva organized a celebration and received the Special Recognition Award from club legend Kenny Dalglish .

Lazio Rome

Leiva has been with Lazio since the 2017/18 season and won the Italian Super Cup with his first competitive game for Lazio on August 13, 2017 . He finished his first season after 36 of 38 possible appearances (two goals) with the team in fifth place and reached the quarter-finals of the Europa League with Lazio .

National team

Lucas for the Brazilian national team 2011

Lucas began his national team career in 2006 in the Brazilian U-20 selection . At the U-20 South American Championship in 2007, Lucas led the team as captain and scored four goals in this tournament, which he had a large part in the subsequent victory of the Brazilians. Lucas would also lead the team at the U-20 World Cup in Canada. However, an injury prevented his participation.

In October 2006, Lucas was appointed by coach Carlos Dunga in the squad of the Brazilian senior team for the friendly against Al Kuwait Kaifan and Ecuador . He was the youngest player in the squad and only one of two not under contract with a European club. In the game against Al-Kuwait on October 7, he was substituted on for the second half. This game does not count as an international match as it was not an official FIFA match. He finally made his international debut on August 22, 2007 when he came on as a substitute for Algeria in a friendly in Montpellier , France .

For the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, Lucas was also appointed to the Brazilian squad. In the semifinals of the Olympic tournament between Brazil and Argentina on August 19, he was sent off after an argument with his club colleague Javier Mascherano in the 81st minute. Brazil lost the game 3-0 and ended up third. In August 2009 he was back in the senior squad when he replaced the injured Kléberson . However, he was not nominated for the World Cup in South Africa. Under the new coach Mano Menezes Leiva was part of the Brazilian squad at the 2011 Copa América in Argentina . At this tournament he was used in all the Brazilians' games and was eliminated with the Seleção in the quarter-finals against Paraguay . After an international test match in October 2011, Leiva only returned to the national team two years later. He played his last game on November 17, 2013 in a friendly in Miami ( United States ) against Honduras . Leiva was no longer considered for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Achievements and titles

In the club

• Series B : 2005
• State champion of Rio Grande do Sul : 2006, 2007
• Copa Libertadores Final : 2007
• League Cup winner : 2011/12
• Italian Supercup : 2017 , 2019
• Italian Cup Winner : 2018/19

National team

• U-20 South American Championship : 2007
• 2008 Summer Olympics : bronze medal
• Sendai Cup ( with U-17 ): 2004

Awards

• Brazil's Footballer of the Year : 2006

Web links

Commons : Lucas Leiva  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Lucas in the database of weltfussball.de
• Lucas in the database of transfermarkt.de
• Lucas Leiva in the database of soccerbase.com (English)
• Lucas in the database of National-Football-Teams.com (English)
• Lucas on the Lazio website (Italian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Marco Guidi: Inter: Lucas Leiva, sangue e grinta da italiano, professionista senza macchia. December 27, 2016, accessed August 1, 2018 (Italian). 
2. ↑ Guilherme Seto: Lucas Leiva, do Liverpool, consegue cidadania britânica para driblar Brexit ( pt ) June 27, 2016. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
3. ↑ Lucas Leiva: I turned down Inter Milan to sign for Liverpool
4. ↑ Liverpool midfielder Lucas Leiva receives backing from manager Rafael Benitez
5. ^ Lucas injury update. (No longer available online.) In: liverpoolfc.tv. December 1, 2011, archived from the original on March 2, 2019 ; accessed on May 16, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Lucas hits 300 LFC games. (No longer available online.) In: liverpoolfc.tv. January 28, 2016, archived from the original on March 2, 2019 ; accessed on March 2, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Paul Gorst: Watch Lucas' speech from 10-year anniversary dinner . In: liverpoolecho , April 26, 2017. 
8. ^ Paul Gorst: Watch Lucas' acceptance speech for Special Recognition award . In: liverpoolecho , May 10, 2017. 
9. ↑ Benvenuto Lucas. In: sslazio.it. July 18, 2017, accessed February 25, 2019 (Italian). 
10. ↑ New Signing Injured ( Memento of the original from November 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ Argentina-Brazil 3-0
12. ↑ Match data on weltfussball.de, accessed on June 3, 2019