Mário Jardel

Mário Jardel de Almeida Ribeiro (born 18 September 1973) is a Brazilian former professional footballer who played as a forward.

He was most noted for his positioning on the field and his heading ability.

He was a legend for Grêmio, playing a major part in the squad that won the 1995 Copa Libertadores.

With his exceptional positioning ability, he was able to become one of Europe's most prolific strikers during his time at Porto, Galatasaray, and Sporting CP, scoring 206 goals in 274 matches for those clubs.

Jardel played first for Vasco da Gama, but moved in 1995 to Grêmio, where he played a major role in the squad that won the 1995 Copa Libertadores, scoring 12 goals to be crowned the tournament's top goal scorer, including a hat-trick in the quarter-finals against Roberto Carlos' Palmeiras, and a goal in the final against Atlético Nacional.

Jardel made his debut for the Brazil national team in 1996, making a total of 10 appearances and being selected for the 2001 Copa América.

In 1996, Jardel was linked to several teams, and after failing to transfer to Benfica and Rangers (due to the strict British rules involving non-EU players), he signed with Portuguese side Porto, where with help from players such as Zlatko Zahovič, Sérgio Conceição and Ljubinko Drulović, he was the top goalscorer in Europe for three years (1998–99, 1999–00, 2001–02), with a goal average of slightly over one goal per match (130 goals in 125 matches for an average of 1.04 per match).

Although he was top scorer three times, due to the use of coefficients based on each European league's standards, he only won twice, the 1998–99 and 2001–02 European Golden Boots.

He lost out to Kevin Phillips in 1999–2000 despite Phillips having scored six fewer goals than Jardel.

Before the 2000–01 season, Jardel was sold to Turkish club Galatasaray, winners of the 1999–2000 UEFA Cup as the club activated his release clause of US$16 million.

Scoring five goals in his debut match in the Süper Lig suggested Jardel would adapt well to his new club, but towards the end of the season, injuries and growing personal problems hinted he was soon going to leave Turkey.

Regardless, he was part of the Galatasaray squad that won the 2000 UEFA Super Cup, himself scoring twice with a golden goal to beat Real Madrid 2–1 in the Super Cup match, and reached the quarter-finals of the 2000–01 UEFA Champions League, with Jardel scoring six goals in the competition and helped in victories against teams such as Rangers, Deportivo de La Coruña, Monaco, Paris Saint-Germain, Milan and Real Madrid.

He ended the season with 34 goals.

In 2001–02, Jardel returned to Portugal; Sporting CP signed him on the last day of transfer window and offered a contract worth €11 million over three seasons.

Sporting transferred Galatasaray three players: Mbo Mpenza, Robert Spehar and Pavel Horváth (valued €3.4 million), as well as US$5 million in cash.

The 2001–02 season proved largely successful to Jardel, as he scored 42 goals in 30 matches (17 via penalties) as Sporting CP won both the Primeira Liga and the Taça de Portugal.

He also won Portuguese Footballer of the Year by Record newspaper, one of the only two foreign players to achieve this, the other being the Argentinian Lisandro López.

While the 2001–02 season was arguably the best of Jardel's career, the following 2002–03 season proved to be the beginning of the end.

Again omitted from the Brazil national team squad, this time for the 2002 FIFA World Cup (despite his tremendous goal-scoring abilities he was rarely called up), and unfit at the start of the season, he spent the year on the injury list.

During the Christmas break, Jardel returned to his native Fortaleza, where he injured his knee in a swimming pool fall.

He scored only nine goals that season.

After leaving Sporting CP in 2003 at age 29, Jardel had a succession of brief and unsuccessful stints at clubs in England, Italy, Spain, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Argentina and Australia.

He was granted, alongside Deco, Portuguese citizenship in February 2003.

In August 2003, Jardel moved to English club Bolton Wanderers, with Sporting CP to receive a transfer fee up to €1.5 million based on his performances in the 2003–04 and 2004–05 seasons.

However, Jardel failed to score a league goal for the club, though he scored three goals in the League Cup, where Bolton were eventually losing finalists.

These goals came in matches against Walsall, where Jardel scored twice, and Liverpool at Anfield.

During the winter break, Jardel went on loan to Italian side Ancona, but could not convince the staff of his physical capabilities.

Ancona supporters called him "lardel" (a pun on the Italian "lardo", meaning lard) due to him being overweight.

Regarding his debut against Milan, an Italian journalist also said, "We stretch a veil of silence in respect of what he has been."

In August 2004, Jardel signed a contract with Argentine club Newell's Old Boys, for which Bolton did not receive any transfer fee.

In September 2005, Jardel signed a contract with Brazilian first-division side Goiás until 31 December 2006.

Jardel returned to Portugal to sign for Beira Mar for the 2006–07 season, for an undisclosed fee.

Despite arriving at the club overweight, he worked hard and trained specifically to lose weight and gain physical form and scored one goal on his debut for Beira-Mar in a 2–2 draw against Desportivo das Aves.

In the winter transfer season, Jardel signed for the Cypriot team Anorthosis Famagusta.

On 14 July 2007, Jardel played for Scottish Premier League club St Mirren, as a trialist in a 3–0 win over first division side Stirling Albion.

On 14 August 2007, Australian A-League side Newcastle United Jets officially announced at a press conference in Newcastle they had signed Jardel on a one-year contract as their marquee player.

Jardel was rumoured to join the club for weeks before the official announcement was made.

He arrived in Australia on 12 August 2007 and traveled to Newcastle on 13 August.

He then played for several smaller clubs in Brazil before retiring in 2011.

In a 2014 interview, Jardel revealed that, during his spell at Porto, he consumed cocaine with the knowledge of both the club's doctor and physiotherapist.