A season average of 7.29 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Porto know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Porto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The first defeat in 5 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Braga; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. Benfica on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
Minute 88, against Braga, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
19 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
82 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Porto they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Beat anybody else and it is three points. Beat them, with his name on it, and it is a year of bragging rights for Porto and a story that will outlast his contract.
Gabri Veiga was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
42 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Gabri Veiga was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
André Silva was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.87. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jan Bednarek was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.11 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Porto will be judged on one thing only.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Porto lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
33 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Gabri Veiga was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. William Gomes has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jan Bednarek is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
9 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Victor Froholdt was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
It finished 2‑1, and it was Gabri Veiga’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Porto.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Jan Bednarek falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” João Costa and Porto agree another 3 years.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Gabri Veiga was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.11. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 5 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Luis Monteiro, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Luuk de Jong
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Fabio Lima
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Porto this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Álvaro Aguado has, at Porto, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The phone has started ringing about Cláudio Ramos again, and this time the name on the line is Leganés. Porto are listening politely and promising nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Jan Bednarek was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Still no offer on the table, and Jakub Kiwior’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.