Focus on... Paulo Gouveia !!

 

Paulo impegnato contro Daniele Bertelli ai mondiali 2014 di Rochfort

D: Please, tell us about Paulo Gouveia. As a man… as a player…

Hello guys! My name is Paulo, as you know already, and I'm 34. I'm Portuguese but I live in Coventry in the U.K. I'm married to a lovely Portuguese lady called Raquel. I started playing subbuteo very young when I was 7/8 and played it non stop in Portugal for 12y, mainly in GDDF with top players like Vasco, Sobral, Maia and Loureiro that were all older than me. They won the Champions League in 1996 and 1997. It was a great achievement for the club. I grew up learning by watching them play and playing with/against other great players of my age, like Joao Pereira, Vitor Lopes, Nelson Fonseca, Tiago Sousa. We ended up being World Champions in Wien 2000, my proudest moment as a subbuteo player. I stopped playing shortly after than and came back in 2012 in the U.K. I played for a small team called NETFA and then move to reform Bristol for a year only with the best English players and Vasco Guimaraes. We won a few Grand Prix, quarter finals in Mons and Champions League and the team disbanded at the end of the season. I then joined Grosseto for two seasons to play on the Serie B which was a great decision and I absolutely loved it!

Lopes, Pereira, Gouveia, Sousa, Fonseca, World Champions in Wien 2000

D: You chose to play in “Serie C” with a “young” team… why this decision ?

Well, sometimes you just have to go with your gut in these kind of decisions. I wanted to make a change, not because I was disappointed with Grosseto in any way, I just decided I wanted a new challenge. Flickers Milano was the perfect decision, a great group of people and players. I knew some of the players like Vittorio, Giulio, Colin and Adrian, all great guys. To add to that we have a lot of other talent like Marco and Geoffrey. I was already impressed when I watched a few of the teams' games in April with the togetherness and organisation of the team. Adding the talent and ambition to it, it was an easy decision to make because it also completely provides the challenge I wanted.

 D: What do you expect  from the Flickers, during next season 2016-17?

That's a tricky question. I really believe the team has the potencial to do something beautiful this season and ambition the promotion to Serie B. But in other way, the team also needs to grow on it's core, strengthen the relationships between the players, improve as a team. What I expect the most is mainly come out of both Serie C weekends knowing we've given 100% of us, both individually and as a team. And if that happens, with a big of luck perhaps we can make a surprise :)

D: Your key strength  and your weak point… 

I believe my key strength is the experience and tactics. I played a lot of World Cup and some Champions League matches as well, played two seasons in Serie B. Played for Portugal in several occasions. Therefore I have that in my advantage. My weak point is sometimes the lack of gameplay, the closest person I have that plays the game competitively is more than 50km away so I do my training mostly by myself.

 D: A question you would have wanted me to ask you… with the answer, obviously… 

Who's your favourite player ever? Vasco Guimaraes. Never seen anyone making the game so easy. He would beat me playing with rocks instead of players. Playing with him in Bristol and for Portugal was a major achievement for me.