Ricardo Sousa
Portuguese footballer

Ricardo André de Pinho Sousa (born 11 January 1979) is a Portuguese professional football manager and former player who played as an attacking midfielder, who is currently in charge of Liga I club Petrolul Ploiești.
He scored 47 goals in 154 matches in the Primeira Liga over seven seasons, representing Porto, Beira-Mar, Santa Clara, Belenenses and Boavista. He scored the only goal of the 1999 Taça de Portugal final for Beira-Mar, and also played in Germany, the Netherlands, Cyprus and Slovenia.
Sousa began coaching in 2015, managing clubs including Beira-Mar, and taking Mafra to the cup semi-finals in 2022.
Club career
Sousa was born in São João da Madeira. Growing up as a footballer in FC Porto, he would play only three games for its first team – a 0–0 Primeira Liga draw against C.D. Santa Clara and two UEFA Champions League appearances, twice as a substitute – and went on to represent S.C. Beira-Mar, where he made his top-division debut in the second part of the 1998–99 season, Santa Clara and C.F. Os Belenenses in consecutive loans; on 16 June 1999, he scored arguably the most important goal of his career as the Aveiro club defeated S.C. Campomaiorense 1–0 to win the Taça de Portugal.
Sousa was finally released by Porto in July 2002, returning to Beira-Mar and representing Boavista F.C. in the following campaign. He netted 14 times for a team that only achieved 32, one of the worst records in that year's top flight.
Subsequently, Sousa left Boavista, signing for three years with German club Hannover 96. He spent the second half of 2004–05 on loan to De Graafschap of the Dutch Eredivisie and the whole of the 2006–07 season in the Portuguese top tier with Boavista, also on loan.
“Ricardo Sousa” enters the record as portuguese footballer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ricardo, Sousa and Portuguese can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Ricardo Sousa” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ricardo, Sousa and Portuguese provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q325599. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979, 1999, 2015 and 2022.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. 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.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Ricardo Sousa”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Ricardo Sousa primary sources, Ricardo Sousa archive and Ricardo research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ricardo Sousa”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Ricardo Sousa” 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.