Football Player's Biography 7: Nilmar Honorato da Silva

Full name	Nilmar Honorato da Silva
Date of birth	14 July 1984 (1984-07-14) (age 26)
Place of birth	Bandeirantes, Brazil
Height	1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Playing position	Striker

Nilmar Honorato da Silva (born 14 July 1984), commonly known as Nilmar, is a Brazilian footballer who currently plays as a striker for Villarreal CF and the Brazilian national team

Club career

Internacional

After coming through the Internacional youth teams, Nilmar played for the professional team in 2003 and 2004 seasons.

Lyon

Nilmar was signed for Olympique Lyonnais in summer 2004, initially as cover for the now ex-Lyon player Élber Giovane. He signed with a clause in his contract that stated that he could be loaned back to Internacional once Élber was fit.^{[citation needed]}
Nilmar made an impressive start during his stint at Lyon, scoring two debut goals as a substitute against Stade Rennais. Unfortunately, he did not score any more goals in the Ligue 1 that season.

Corinthians

With the impending signing of Fred, Lyon chose to loan Nilmar out, this time to Corinthians in his native Brazil. They were somewhat forced to do this in order to stay within the limit of non-EU players.^{[citation needed]}
As well as this law, Lyon already had four established forwards, namely Fred, Sylvain Wiltord, Milan Baroš, and Sidney Govou, and, despite his good performances with Corinthians, Nilmar was ultimately sold to the South American club. At Corinthians, the young striker hit the target on his debut against São Paulo FC, with almost his first touch of the ball and he continued to impress fans and critics alike throughout his first season. His skill, speed, and mazy dribbles helped win him a place in the Brazilian League all-star team for the 2005 season.

Return to Internacional

On 17 August 2007, the Justiça do Trabalho (literally "court of employment") cancelled Nilmar's contract because Corinthians owed the player €2 million.^{[citation needed]} Nilmar was consequently available to sign for any club for free, while Corinthians must still pay the eight million euros they owed to Lyon for Nilmar's original transfer in 2005.^{[citation needed]}
In the following month, Nilmar returned to Internacional, despite the interest of several major clubs in Europe and Brazil. He made his new debut for the Porto Alegre team on 4 November 2007, when Inter beat CR Vasco da Gama 2–1. He was chosen as the Man of the Match.
In January 2008, he scored an impressive goal against Internazionale of Italy in the Dubai Cup final, which helped his side win the game. In the summer of 2008, Palermo offered €15 million, with a bonus of up to €3 million. This was rejected, however, and activated the clause that Internacional bought the remain rights from his agent.^[1]
In December 2008, he scored the winning goal in the Copa Sudamericana final match, giving Internacional the title. It was the first time that the Copa Sudamericana was won by a Brazilian club.

Villarreal

Fernando Roig, the President of Villarreal CF confirmed the signing of Nilmar on 25 July 2009.
He started Villarreal's first game of the La Liga 2009–10 against CA Osasuna. Santi Cazorla scored Villarreal's only goal of the game and Nilmar played the full 90 minutes. Nilmar and Giuseppe Rossi are currently the first-choice strikers for Villarreal.
On 17 September 2009, Nilmar scored the winning goal in the Europa League group stage clash against Bulgarian side Levski Sofia.^[2] On 10 March 2011, he netted twice (including a last-minute goal) to help his team to a 3:2 away win against German club Bayer Leverkusen in the first leg of a last 16 round match of the Europa League.^[3]

International career

Nilmar made his international debut for Brazil in 2003 CONCACAF Gold Cup match against Mexico on 13 July 2003. He appeared three times in the tournament as Brazil was defeated by Mexico in the final. Although Brazil chose to send Brazil under-23 team to the tournament, all the international appearances in the tournament are recognized by FIFA as full international caps. His first international goal came against Haiti on 18 August 2004, as Brazil won 6–0.
After four years out of the national team, on 29 August 2008, Nilmar was recalled by coach Dunga as a replacement for the injured Rafael Sóbis for World Cup qualifiers against Chile and Bolivia. On 21 May 2009, he was selected in Brazil squad for the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup in South Africa.^[4] He made one substitute appearance in the tournament as Brazil went on to win the cup.
On 9 September 2009, he scored a hat-trick for Brazil in a 4–2 win against Chile.^[5] On 14 November 2009, Nilmar scored the only goal of the match with a header in a friendly against England. He then scored again in a second friendly match on 17 November 2009 against Oman. He was a member in the Brazil squad for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, hosted by South Africa, as a substitute. He scored Brazil's third goal in a friendly match on 7 October 2010 against Iran.