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Toy (footballer, born 1977)

Cape Verdean association football player

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ3564478 ↗
Source-derived summary

Vítor Manuel Andrade Gomes da Costa (born 15 June 1977), commonly known as Toy, is a Cape Verdean former footballer who played as a forward.

Club career

Born in Lisbon, Toy spent the bulk of his professional career in his adopted country, Portugal, first starting in amateur football. In 1999 he signed with Primeira Liga giants S.L. Benfica, but played mainly with its reserves during his two-year spell.

Toy represented mainly S.C. Olhanense, first arriving at the Algarve club in 2004 then returning in summer 2007 after a spell in Saudi Arabia. In the 2008–09 season, in the second division, he contributed with six goals to help his team return to the top flight after a 34-year absence.

In the following three campaigns, Toy was relatively used by Olhanense, mainly as a substitute.

International career

Toy opted to represent Cape Verde internationally, receiving his first callup in May 2008 at nearly 31 years of age.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Toy (footballer, born 1977)” is cape Verdean association football player. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through footballer, born and Cape, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1977, 1999, 2004, 2007—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1977-06-15. For this dossier, footballer, born and Cape is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “cape Verdean association football player” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3564478. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1977, 1999, 2004 and 2007.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. 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.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Toy (footballer, born 1977)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Toy (footballer, born 1977) primary sources, Toy (footballer, born 1977) archive and footballer research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Toy (footballer, born 1977)”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Toy (footballer, born 1977)” 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.