Rui da Gracia


Rui Fernando da Gracia Gomes, simply known as Rui, is a professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Preferente Madrid club Colmenar Viejo. Born and raised in Spain to Cape Verdean parents, he has been capped for the Equatorial Guinea national team.
𝕏 Ruibinho

Early life

Rui was born in Bembibre, Castile and León to Cape Verdean parents from São Nicolau, who had emigrated to Portugal in the mid-1970s and then to Spain.

Club career

Rui is a product of CA Bembibre. He has developed most of his club career in his homecountry Spain, also playing in Cyprus and Malta, where he was a two-time Maltese Premier League champion with Hibernians FC.

International career

Rui represented Cape Verde in the 2003 and 2009 editions of Mundialito, a Spanish-based tournament where the participant teams are entirely composed by amateur footballers from the different foreign diasporas in Spain and were not linked to their respective official national teams. He was never contacted by the Cape Verdean Football Federation to play for the official Cape Verde national team. He also played for the Spanish autonomous team of Castile and León.
While playing for Spanish club CF Palencia, Rui was invited by Equatorial Guinean international midfielder Benjamín Zarandona, who was then his teammate, to become a naturalised citizen of Equatorial Guinea in order to play for its national team.
In July 2010, Rui received his first call for the Equatoguinean senior team and to play a friendly match against Morocco on 11 August 2010. However, he didn't attend due to injury.
Rui's first incursion with Equatorial Guinea on 12 October 2010, when he participated in a friendly lost against Botswana by 0–2 in Malabo.
Rui was part of the squad for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, being a first-choice defender for the Nzalang Nacional.

International goals

GoalDateVenueOpponentScoreResultCompetition
1.15 November 2015Estadio de Bata, Bata, Equatorial Guinea1–01–02018 FIFA World Cup qualification