Portugal has already started their concentration for the Euro, although a new face joined the training sessions. The offensive midfielder from Manchester City, Matheus Nunes, replaced Otávio Monteiro, who was ruled out due to injury.
In this way, the team led by Roberto Martínez is replacing a player born in Brazil with another who was also born in the South American giant. Otávio is originally from João Pessoa, the beautiful coastal city located at the easternmost point of the American continent, and after a stint at Internacional de Porto Alegre, he went to Porto in 2014 and acquired Portuguese nationality.
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In the case of Nunes, he was born in Rio de Janeiro and at the age of 12 he already moved to Lisbon with his mother. He started playing football at a regional club, while at the same time working in the family bakery, until he made the jump with Estoril first, and especially with Sporting.
After three years in Portuguese football, he was signed by Wolverhampton in the Premier League and has been part of Manchester City since last year. He was expressly requested by Pep Guardiola, marveled by his technical quality, something that Tite also noticed when he called him up for the Brazilian national team in 2021 for the South American Qualifiers.
The reason why Matheus Nunes did not travel to Brazil
According to what Tite, now the Flamengo coach, said at the time, Nunes expressed “the joy and pride he felt in being part of the Brazilian national team.” His call-up came when he was playing in Portugal and after the ban that Premier League clubs had imposed on releasing players to countries with high Covid-19 cases, in the midst of the pandemic.
However, the player later decided not to attend because he did not have the complete vaccination against the virus, which would have forced him to quarantine upon his return to Europe and miss two important matches with his club. Two months later, Portugal anticipated, called him up for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers and then included him in the list of those who played the tournament in Qatar.
Portugal prepare for the Euro
The Portuguese national team trains without their captain, Cristiano Ronaldo, who will join the group on Friday to play his sixth European Championship, a tournament he won in 2016. Thus, the 39-year-old striker will miss the friendlies against Finland (today, June 4th) and Croatia (June 8th), although he will be available for the clash against Ireland (June 11th).
Portugal will face the Czech Republic, Turkey and Georgia in group F of the Euros, which will be played in Germany from June 14th to July 14th.
Remembering Zagallo
Sambafoot Series launched a new documentary about the football legend Zagallo. Known as ‘Velho Lobo‘ and as superstitious as it gets, Zagallo helped shape what Brazilian football is nowadays — as a player and as a coach.
Watch the full series, available on Sambafoot’s Youtube channel.
