New President’s Secret Past: From Footballer to Athlete

António José Seguro was elected last Sunday as President of the Republic for the next five years. The former secretary general of the Socialist Party, who was also secretary of state and deputy minister to the prime minister in António Guterres’ government, also had a (short) career in the world of football.

Over the course of three years, Seguro, born in Penamacor, played for Penamacorense, a club in his hometown. «In the first game, I started in goal and ended up as a center forward», he mentioned in a post on social media during his participation in the Portugal Football Summit, last October.

The future Head of State, who will take office on March 9th, then played for the youth, juniors and seniors of the Penamacor club, between the 1978/79 and 1981/82 seasons. But his career in the world of sport began before, in athletics.

«He was almost certain he would win at that level. In the other one it was for adults and how was there a pedal for that? It was his imagination. But it really had [pedalada]in fact. The coach saw that he was good for it. And he ran and won”, recalled his friend José Lopes Nunes, in a report on Rádio Renascença about the roots of the Penamacor native, who recalled the time when, even running in the most advanced junior category, he won the 10 kilometers of the town’s São Silvestre Race.