Luís Figo
Portuguese football player (born 1972)
Luís Filipe Madeira Caeiro Figo (Portuguese pronunciation: [luˈiʃ ˈfiɣu]; born 4 November 1972) is a Portuguese former professional footballer who played as a winger for Sporting CP, Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Inter Milan. He won 127 caps for the Portugal national team, a one-time record. Figo is widely regarded as one of the best players of his generation and one of the greatest wingers in the history of the sport. He ranks second for the all-time Portuguese top assist providers in the UEFA Champions League (15).
Figo won the 2000 Ballon d'Or, 2001 FIFA World Player of the Year, and in 2004 Pelé named him in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players. Figo is one of the few football players to have played for both Spanish rival clubs Barcelona and Real Madrid. His transfer from Barcelona to Real Madrid in 2000 set a world record fee of €62 million.
Figo had a very successful career highlighted by several trophy wins, including the Portuguese Cup, four La Liga titles, two Spanish Cups, three Spanish Super Cups, one Champions League title, one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, two UEFA Super Cups, one Intercontinental Cup, four Serie A titles, one Italian Cup, and three Italian Super Cups. At international level, he scored 32 goals for Portugal, representing the nation at three European Championships and two World Cups, helping them reach the final but finish as runners-up at Euro 2004, as well as reaching the semi-finals at the 2006 World Cup.
Early years
The only child of António Caeiro Figo and Maria Joana Pestana Madeira who moved from Alentejo to Lisbon in the early 1970s, Figo grew up in the working-class district of Cova da Piedade, Almada.
The public source identifies “Luís Figo” as portuguese football player (born 1972). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Luís, Figo and Portuguese.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Luís Figo”, the useful work is to connect “portuguese football player (born 1972)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q483145. VIAF identifies the subject as 256287335. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 2000, 2001 and 2004.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Luís Figo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.