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Santa Clara
Full name	Clube Desportivo Santa Clara
Founded	1921
Ground	Estádio de São Miguel,; Ponta Delgada; (Capacity: 15,277)
Chairman	Cruz Marques
Manager	Vítor Pereira
League	Liga de Honra
2008-09	Liga de Honra, 3th
Home colours	Away colours

Clube Desportivo Santa Clara is an Portuguese football club from Ponta Delgada, Azores. To date, it is the only club from the Azores to have competed in the top division of the Portuguese Liga, although they currently compete in the Liga de Honra.

[edit] Overview

Among the club's most famous players are Paulo Figueiredo, Clayton, Lito Vidigal, and Jorge Ribeiro. Portugal's all-time leading scorer Pauleta was a youth player at the club.

Santa Clara is one of the only teams from the Azores area to participate in the Portuguese Liga: due to the geographic area of the Azores, Santa Clara's rivals are Nacional and Marítimo, both from Madeira. Matches against teams from Madeira prove to be very heated affairs, with both sets of fans segregated and heightened security required.

Santa Clara play in the Estádio de São Miguel in Ponta Delgada, the largest city in the Azores.

The club also shares lesser rivalries with Vizela and Trofense

The club also qualified for the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 2002, where they crushed and ran riot against Armenian club FC Shirak.

The current club captain is Nuno Sociedade.

The clubs most successful manager was Manuel Fernandes, a former Portugal international. Fernandes was the first manager to take Santa Clara to the First Division, where he was praised in the Azores.

Santa Clara's current kit manufactuer is Macron and their sponsors are Açoreana Seguros. Over the past years, it's been rumored that Lotto and Umbro are interested in manufacturing their new kits.

The club also played in the old Estádio da Luz, as Benfica's last official match before a new stadium was built in Lisbon for UEFA Euro 2004, in which Portugal hosted. The attendance of that game was close to 50,000.

Recently, Paulo Sérgio, coach of Santa Clara, was sacked after losing a first place lead by mid-season. With only sven games left until the end of the season, the club lay in tenth place and have failed to earn promotion.

[edit] Madeira and Azores rivalry

Prior to Marítimo's October 2006 domestic league clash against Naval 1º de Maio, Marítimo and fellow Madeira rivals Nacional announced that construction would begin on the brand-new, 10,000 capacity Estádio do Madeira in the nearby Praia Formosa area of Funchal. After Portuguese press released this statement, officials in the Azores also prompted for a brand new stadium in the Azores for Santa Clara, where Santa Clara and the Portuguese national team would play in. So far, Madeira's new stadium is in the works and Santa Clara's new stadium is now being considered; team president Cruz Marques says he will only consider it when Santa Clara get promoted into the first division.

During the 1990s, the lack of funds going into Santa Clara where noticeable as the club fell from the First Division and sank deeply into the Second. It was this period that also saw the Azores and Madeira derby grow even stronger as Nacional and Marítimo fans would sing "O Barco Açoriano Está no Fundo" (translated as: "the Azorean boat has just sank to the bottom"), but in recent times, president Marques has been investing more time and money into the club such as into the ever growing talent of Ruben Rodrigues and players such as talented keeper João Botelho. The club is a favourite in the Liga de Honra to get promoted for the current season.

Politics also take a part in the Madeira-Azores derby with Madeira's controversial regional governor, Alberto João Jardim, being a self-confessed Marítimo supporter and also because of the heated relationship with the two regional governors. On the opposite end, Azores regional governor, Carlos César, is a Santa Clara fan.

The derby even competes with each other using players as Madeira's most famous footballer, being Cristiano Ronaldo, who played for Madeira club Nacional and currently plays for Real Madrid, and the Azores had prolific striker and all-time leading scorer for Portugal, Pauleta, who played for Santa Clara. This only exacerbates the ill-feeling between the clubs and the two islands.

[edit] Current Squad

As of Dezember 2009

No.	Position	Player
1	GK	Ney
2	DF	João Dias
3	DF	Danilo Rocha
4	DF	Gonçalo
5	MF	Tó Miguel
6	MF	Danilo
7	FW	Leandro Tatu
8	MF	Feliciano
10	MF	Ruy Netto
11	DF	Stopira
12	GK	Matthew Jones
13	MF	Valter
14	DF	Vitor Alves

No.	Position	Player
16	FW	Rincón
17	FW	Lico
18	MF	Nuno Sociedade
20	FW	Neto
23	DF	Hernani Tomás
24	GK	João Botelho
25	FW	Nuno Santos
27	MF	Gaoussou Fofana
28	MF	Oliveira
29	FW	Renan Marques
30	MF	Gabi

[edit] Notable Former Players

[edit] League and cup history

The club has spent three seasons at the top level of Portuguese football.

Season	Div.	Pos.	Pl.	W	D	L	GS	GA	P	Cup	Notes
1982-1983	3D	7	30	12	6	12	42	39	30	2nd round
1983-1984	3D	7	30	12	7	11	38	32	31	2nd round
1984-1985	3D	10	30	11	6	13	32	26	28	2nd round
1985-1986	3D	4	30	14	8	8	34	20	36	2nd round
1986-1987	3D	2	30	16	8	6	54	29	40	1st round	promoted
1987-1988	2B	20	38	5	13	20	19	51	23	3rd round	relegated
1988-1989	3D	10	34	13	9	12	35	32	35	2nd round
1989-1990	3D	1	34	18	9	7	54	41	45	2nd round	promoted
1990-1991	2B	14	34	12	9	17	40	56	33	1st round	relegated
1991-1992	3D	5	34	15	9	10	55	34	39	2nd round
1992-1993	3D	14	34	8	14	12	27	40	30	1st round
1993-1994	3D	13	34	10	9	15	28	52	29	1st round
1994-1995	3D	18	34	3	9	22	20	70	15	1st round
1995-1996	3D	1	26	16	7	3	48	15	55	1st round	promoted
1996-1997	2B	2	34	19	6	9	67	36	63	3rd round
1997-1998	2B	1	34	18	8	5	60	31	65	4th round	promoted
1998-1999	2H	3	34	13	13	7	53	37	55	5th round	promoted
1999-2000	1D	18	34	7	10	17	35	50	31	5th round	relegated
2000-2001	2H	1	34	20	7	7	60	37	67	3rd round	promoted
2001-2002	1D	14	34	9	10	15	32	46	37	5th round	Record for Highest League Placing
2002-2003	1D	17	34	8	11	15	39	54	35	5th round	relegated
2003-2004	2H	13	34	11	9	14	41	44	42	3rd round
2004-2005	2H	15	34	11	6	17	39	49	39	4th round
2005-2006	2H	6	34	13	12	9	45	32	51	4th round
2006-2007	2H	4	30	15	5	10	34	31	50	4th round
2007-2008	2H	10	30	10	7	13	31	50	37	4th round
2008-2009	2H	3	30	15	7	8	45	32	52	5th round

[edit] Europe

UEFA Intertoto Cup 2002-03
22/06 Santa Clara 2-0 Shirak
29/06 Shirak 3-3 Santa Clara
07/07 Teplice 5-1 Santa Clara
13/07 Santa Clara 1-4 Teplice

[edit] External links

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