Portuguese from Luxembourg
It’s doubtful that upon hearing the name Gerson Leal Rodrigues Correia people would define which national team he represents at once. It’s quite obvious that Dynamo newcomer is from Portugal, but national team is a different matter.
Gerson was born in Portuguese town of Pragal, near Lisbon. But his football career started in the French club FC Metz. He’s their trainee, but didn’t make a single appearance for the team.
France and Luxembourg are neighboring countries, so they have close relationship including sports. For example, famous defender Jeff Strasser also started his career in Metz and in 2009-11 Luxembourg legend Mario Mutsh also featured for this club.
From France to Moldova
After football academy young players need game practice and Rodrigues, who didn’t have guaranteed place in Metz first team, found himself in Luxembourg.
After FC Swift Hesperange, he feature for Union 05. Then there was loan move to Racing Union and a period in one of local top clubs CS Fola Esch. In every club, Rodrigues was the first team regular and scored. In 2016/17 season he scored 9 goals in 21 matches for Fola. Then he got and offer from Netherlands.
Humble SC Telsar spotted newfound Luxembourger (in March Gerson made his debut for Luxembourg national team and in summer went to Netherlands). After 12 games and three goals for the club, in winter of 2018 he joined FC Sheriff Tiraspol.
This club regularly performs in euro cups which probably was the major motivation for the player. On July 10 2018 he made his debut in the Champions League qualifier against FC Torpedo Kutaisi. He has 7 appearances on European arena to his name.
Ukraine savior
Having won the Moldovan league with Sheriff, in January Gerson got interesting offer from Japanese side Jubilo Iwata. There he became one of the leaders and scored 7 goals in 18 matches.
It’s doubtful Gerson knew a lot about Ukrainian football until the game against Ukraine national team. In that match Rodrigues scored the decisive own goal in a stoppage time. In the return match he thrilled our defenders and supporters. He was one of the best performers on the field in both games.
Rodrigues is attacking right-footed able to perform in several positions although his major one is winger.
