Artur Jorge Braga Melo Teixeira, commonly known as Artur Jorge, is a Portuguese football manager and former player, who played as a forward.
Club career
As a junior player, he started at the junior team of FC Porto. As professional player, he played for Académica de Coimbra and Benfica, before ending his career at Belenenses in the 1977–78 season, due to a serious injury suffered at a training session in the Estádio Nacional where he broke a leg. During his player days in Coimbra, Jorge was a student at the Faculty of Literature of the University of Coimbra, graduating in Germanic Philology from the University of Lisbon in 1975 during his time at Benfica. As a player, he won four Portuguese league championships, two Taça de Portugal cups and two silver boots for being the best goalscorer. He underwent knee surgery five times during his career, this is attributed as one of the causes of his declining abilities at the end of the career.
International career
Despite having been one of the top scorers at Benfica, the concurrence of other great forwards such as Eusébio, Rui Jordão and Nené largely limited Artur Jorge to only 16caps for Portugal, earning two caps while at Académica, 13 at Benfica and one while playing for Belenenses, scoring only one goal during his international career. His debut, on 27 March 1967, was a 1–1 draw with Italy, in a friendly match, in Rome. His last match was on 30 March 1977, a 1–0 win over Switzerland in another friendly match, in Funchal, Madeira. He was a member of the squad that reached the Brazil Independence Cup final, in 1972, the highest point of his international career.
Managerial career
After his player career, Artur Jorge went to Leipzig, East Germany, to study football and training methodology. He started his managerial career working with Vitória de Guimarães, moving on to Belenenses, Portimonense and then signing with Porto for the 1984–85 season, where he won three national champion titles and two Taça de Portugal titles. His greatest success was to win the European Cup with Porto over favourites Bayern Munich 2–1. Jorge is known since then as "Rei Artur". He moved to Racing Paris the next season, and returned to Porto in 1989–90. He then moved to Paris Saint-Germain in 1991–92, where he won the national championship in 1993–94. Artur Jorge moved to Benfica in 1994–95, finishing third with his team, and was replaced at the beginning of the following season. Since then, he has been coach of several other clubs including Académica de Coimbra, Vitesse Arnhem, Tenerife and CSKA Moscow. He managed the Portugal national team, initially while still Porto coach during the 1989–90 and 1990–91 seasons, and again during the 1996–97 season. He also managed the Switzerland team at UEFA Euro 1996, replacing Roy Hodgson under whom they had qualified. Since 2004 he managed Cameroon. He failed to lead his team to the 2006 FIFA World Cup. He managed Saudi club Al-Nasr for only two cup matches and was sacked following a 4–1 defeat by lowly club Al-Faisaly. He then managed French second division team Créteil in 2006–07. On 27 November 2014, Artur Jorge joined Algerian club MC Alger, ending a seven-year period without coaching. That appointment ended on 8 October 2015.
