Lisbon, 27 Feb. The Portuguese beach soccer team will not be able to count on its captain, Nuno Belchior, for its upcoming commitments, since he left the call to enter a reality TV show.
Belchior, a 40-year-old pivot, is one of the candidates for the program “O Triangulo” (“The Triangle”), on the Portuguese channel TVI, and is now locked up in a house watched by cameras.
Because of this, he will miss Portugal’s warm-up matches scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, both against Poland.
His replacement on the “quinas” list will be Bernardo Lopes, the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) announced in a statement.
The former Sporting de Portugal and Italian Roma player is one of his country’s greatest references on the sand, where he has won several trophies, including two world championships.
He also received in 2015, together with his teammates, the Order of Infante Don Henrique, and in 2019 he obtained the Commander of the Order of Merit, among the main decorations awarded by the Portuguese authorities.
Belchior, about his presence in the program, said that he is “much more nervous than if he played any game” and that his objective will be “to shoot on goal and score more goals than his rival”. ECE
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