He rose through Porto’s ranks, played for Portugal from under-17s up to senior level, was the Portuguese young player of the year in 2022, was named in the Champions League and Ligue 1 teams of the season in 2024 and won four domestic titles in two countries.
He’s now starring as a midfield maestro at Euro 2024 in arguably the most talented group of Portuguese footballers ever assembled.
Yet, if you had blinked in the 2020-21 season, you may have missed that Vitinha was in the Premier League for a whole year.
Yes, Vitinha, the guy who’s running Portugal’s midfield and keeping Ruben Neves, Joao Neves and Matheus Nunes out of the side. He was a Premier League player.
He’s Portuguese, so obviously he played for Wolves, spending 2020-21 at Molineux on loan from Porto as a 20-year-old whippersnapper. But why didn’t he leave a mark on England other than a solitary goal at — checks notes — non-League Chorley away in the FA Cup?
And how did he go from a Wolves bench player to one of Europe’s best midfielders in three years?
Vitinha, right, in action against Chorley in the FA Cup three years ago (Lindsey Parnaby/AFP via Getty Images)
Vitinha’s star was already rising when he moved to England.
A year earlier, he had helped Porto win the UEFA Youth League alongside keeper Diogo Costa and future Arsenal midfielder Fabio Vieira (beating a Chelsea team in the final that contained Conor Gallagher, Ian Maatsen, Billy Gilmour and Marc Guehi). That summer, he was named the breakthrough player at the Toulon Tournament, a prominent youth competition.
His senior Porto debut came the following season, and he played 12 times in all competitions as they won the Primeira League title.
But in the summer of 2020, Porto were in a financial pickle and needed to offload players to meet financial fair play regulations. Out went Fabio Silva (to Wolves) for £35million ($29.7m), Alex Telles to Manchester United for £15m and Francisco Soares to Chinese club Tianjin Teda for £10m.
Vitinha was deemed surplus to requirements and a loan move with an option of a £17m permanent deal was agreed with Wolves. The two clubs were familiar to each other via agent Jorge Mendes who had helped broker deals for Ruben Neves, Willy Boly and Silva.
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Vitinha was labelled as “a crucial signing and an integral component in our recruitment plan for this summer” by chairman Jeff Shi when he signed just before the start of the 2020-21 campaign, delayed to September owing to the pandemic.
However, in Wolves’ first 15 league games, he played just 58 minutes, spread over seven substitute appearances.
Head coach Nuno Espirito Santo was playing 3-4-3 and, with Neves and Joao Moutinho occupying the two midfield berths, there was no room for Vitinha there — ditto in either of the wide forward roles that were designed more for pacey, counter-attacking wingers such as Pedro Neto and Adama Traore, not a central playmaker like Vitinha.
Morgan Gibbs-White was suffering from the same positional issue and had been sent out on loan to Swansea City in the Championship. It’s thought Vitinha, as with Gibbs-White, was agitated at not being given enough minutes to prove himself.
Raul Jimenez’s prolonged absence due to a fractured skull led to Vitinha getting more opportunities in a rejigged system (he made his first start as a No 10 away at Manchester United), but Vitinha never started more than two games in a row and was generally ineffective, with Wolves badly struggling without Jimenez as a focal point. They finished 13th.
Vitinha comes up against ex-Porto team-mate Alex Telles in a rare start for Wolves against Manchester United (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)
Wolves had a player struggling to cope with the intensity of the Premier League who, while showing obvious technical ability, rarely imposed himself on matches and didn’t fit their counter-attacking style.
“We are pleased with Vitinha,” Nuno said at the time. “He’s a young player, but full of talent and quality.
“He has a lot of things to improve on his game in terms of physicality and duels — the aspects which normally require a time of adaptation. But the talent is there. He’s a good option who in the right moments can be helpful.”
Vitinha ended the season with one goal (a 35-yard scorcher at Chorley) and one assist, but he only started twice in his preferred position of central midfield at the end of the campaign.
The last non-league side left in the competition, Chorley, pushed Premier League Wolves all the way.
A stunner from Vitinha secured Nuno Espírito Santo’s side a victory. pic.twitter.com/PgLr9du0YH
— Emirates FA Cup (@EmiratesFACup) January 22, 2021
Not that the staff at Wolves missed his potential. Senior figures believed he had an incredibly high ceiling and he was considered someone who could be as good as Moutinho once he developed physically.
Wolves may not have got much from the loan, but Vitinha certainly felt the benefit of a year at a Premier League club.
“It brought me things I probably wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t gone,” he later said.
“I grew a lot, including off the pitch — the things I had to learn on what it’s like to be in a club, outside of your country, outside your comfort zone. If I could go back, I wouldn’t change anything.”
Despite his struggles, it looked like Wolves may still sign him for £17million that summer, with Nuno believed to be pushing to make the loan permanent. However, Nuno left at the end of the campaign and his successor, Bruno Lage, wasn’t as keen. Wolves were even offered Vitinha again the following January, but again Lage said no.
Vitinha returned to Porto after Bruno Lage took over at Wolves (Ian Hodgson/PA Images via Getty Images)
Instead, Vitinha went back to Porto and, after starting 2021-22 on the bench, established himself in their first team alongside Mateus Uribe in central midfield. The deeper role and more time on the ball suited him and he thrived. Vitinha played 47 games in all competitions as Porto won the double. He was named in the team of the year and as the league’s best young player.
Porto doubled their money when a £34million move to Paris Saint-Germain followed in June 2022. Vitinha was a fixture in Christophe Galtier’s side, playing 48 times in all competitions, but he was one of several players who seemed to suffer from the imbalance of the PSG team.
He had to cover a lot of ground with the side geared around Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe — the pair not renowned for their off-the-ball work — and Vitinha’s performances were criticised.
There was also the peculiar story of a rumoured training ground bust-up with Messi, with reports the Argentinian had told Vitinha he didn’t rate him and he was hurting his game — something Vitinha vehemently denied on social media.
It all added to the sense of a mixed first season, at best.
Vitinha struggled under Galtier in a team featuring Messi (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)
What changed for Vitinha was the appointment of Luis Enrique and a new era at PSG; one focused more on the collective, as well as a tactical style and a possession-based game.
In the first part of the season, Luis Enrique would rotate Vitinha with Mbappe on the left side. Then when Mbappe was re-positioned as a centre-forward, Vitinha was increasingly used in his preferred central-midfield role.
He became the team’s conductor, improved his defensive work, harassed the opposition and regularly started attacks as the heartbeat of the side.
By the second half of the campaign, he was undroppable, playing 90 minutes in all of PSG’s Champions League knockout games and also chipping in with more goals, nine in total (a few of them long-range beauties) making him the team’s joint-third top-scorer.
“Vitinha is a player who is perfectly suited to our playing philosophy, to our expectations, to the qualities that a midfielder must have,” Luis Enrique said.
“He is a player with unlimited energy, he plays every minute of the matches, and he wants to train with those who have not played after the games. So he’s really a very interesting player for us and it’s a pleasure to have him in our team.”
The PSG manager hailed Vitinha as his player of the season and his prominence in the club’s midfield has coincided with him establishing himself in Portugal’s midfield in the past six months under Roberto Martinez.
Vitinha grew in importance to PSG under Luis Enrique (Pascal Guyot/AFP via Getty Images)
He was named man of the match in Portugal’s opening game of Euro 2024, a 2-1 win over the Czech Republic. And his busy, aggressive, tempo-setting displays have become one of the hallmarks of Portugal’s team.
Danilo Pereira, a team-mate at PSG and Portugal, believes Vitinha’s mentality has helped him thrive for club and country. Some of his international team-mates call Vitinha “the maestro”.
“He’s a youngster of whom I’m very proud because I saw him in Porto when he was very young, then I saw his progression over the years,” Danilo said.
“He has a very strong mentality. He also comes from a very close-knit family, and that helps him a lot. He works hard, knows how to listen and accepts criticism.”
He endured plenty of criticism at Wolves, where he made just five league starts in the not-too-distant past, but Vitinha, who is only behind Toni Kroos and Kobbie Mainoo for the percentage of accurate passes played in the opposition half at Euro 2024, is only looking forward now.
(Top photos: Getty Images)