It is Tuesday afternoon in Wolverhampton city centre and Monica Lopes, the owner of Aromas de Portugal, has just welcomed a couple of regular customers into her coffee shop on King Street. Well, regular in one sense but not in another given it is Rúben Neves and Diogo Jota who are sitting in front of a plate of delicious Portuguese custard tarts – pastéis de nata – talking about cricket.
That the pair managed to arrive unnoticed is an achievement in itself. “Last time [Monica] closed the door and we had to go upstairs,” Jota says, smiling. “There’s a pub right outside, so if someone sees us, takes a picture and goes there, he’ll show the picture and then the other people come to ask for an autograph or a photo. So they don’t come for a coffee but to take a picture and of course that’s not the point.”
For Jota and Neves, who joined Wolves in July last year after playing together at Porto, this little corner of the Black Country feels like home away from home. Hélder Costa, another member of the sizeable Portuguese contingent at the club, is credited with discovering the place, which opened 13 months ago. Monica, who is from Porto, could not have timed things better in that respect, although she has no interest in football and was oblivious to the fact a number of her customers were household names and worth millions of pounds until she saw her boyfriend talking to them and asked how he knew them.
These days she is on much more familiar terms. There is a signed Wolves shirt behind the counter – the backroom staff who work with Nuno Espírito Santo, the club’s Portuguese manager, handed it over – and the players pop by at all times of the day, often with their partners. “We came here three weeks ago [in the evening] to eat francesinha,” says Jota, referring to Porto’s traditional doorstep sandwich, which is layered with pork and sausage and topped off with steak. “It’s all about the sauce,” adds Neves, sounding more like a sous chef than a deep-lying playmaker. “Because inside the bread is always the same, so it’s the sauce that makes the difference.”
Neves and Jota, who got to know each other playing for Portugal’s Under-21s, are terrific company. Humble and affable, they speak with such maturity it is easy to forget they are 21 years old. At times they are like a married couple as they finish off one another’s sentences, no more so than when the conversation turns to the slightly awkward question of how they compare Wolverhampton with Porto.
“It’s not possible to compare, it’s completely different,” Neves says, diplomatically. “In Porto it’s a tourist city. It’s close to the river, the ocean as well, there’s a lot of history. The wine and the food also. And here it’s an industrial city. But we’re fine with it. We want to play football … in the best league in the world, so the city doesn’t matter,” Jota adds. “And we have a good home and our family with us,” continues Neves.
There is a quiet sense of vindication about how things have turned out at Wolves, bearing in mind the questions asked when they swapped the glamour of the Champions League for the grind of the Championship last season. “We had to take the risk to come here,” says Jota, who initially joined on loan from Atlético Madrid. “Sometimes when you want to achieve something, you have to take a risk. And at that time it was the best thing to do. We came here, we saw the project of the club, we saw the players they bought, so we put our minds in the Championship, focused on [getting to] the Premier League and did our work. In the beginning a lot of people criticised us, including in Portugal. They said: ‘You are a great player, and you go there now?’ But now I think everyone understands we were right.”
The overriding impression is that Neves and Jota could not be happier. Jota talks about how much more comfortable he is off the field in Wolverhampton than in Porto, where the level of attention was suffocating at times, and both remark on how refreshing it is to be in a league where the ball is in play a lot more. “Time-wasting is one of the worst things we have in Portugal,” Jota says, sighing. “For example, when we played against Manchester City we still wanted to play when we had Jonny injured. But in Portugal, you’ll get a lot of players ‘injured’.”
That there are so many Portuguese players at Wolves – seven in the first-team squad – has been a huge help when it comes to adapting to England. “It’s now like our family,” says Neves, who explains how they all get together whenever anyone has a birthday. “Sometimes we feel like we are in Portugal when we have dinner together. I had my daughter’s first birthday [last month], I brought my family and my fiancee’s family from Portugal, and with all the Portuguese players as well there were 30 people.”
The follow-up question prompts Neves and Jota to react with laughter and a sense of incredulity. Given that their manager is also Portuguese, does he ever get invited to the birthday dinners? “Nooooooooo!” the two respond in unison, looking flabbergasted. “You can’t cross that line,” Jota says, smiling.
Their level of respect for Nuno, who also managed them at Porto, shines through when they talk about him. “He’s a really intense and ambitious coach,” Neves says. “I think the most important thing is the motivation – he’s always motivated to do his best all the time. Even when we’re playing good, he wants us to play better. I think this makes the difference with him.”
There is also some fun to go alongside all the hard work at Wolves. During downtime at the training ground, the Portuguese players take each other on at head-tennis while the English-speaking members of the squad play cricket in the gym. Asked whether they ever swap, Neves replies: “Yeah, now we play cricket as well. It’s funny, we didn’t know the game before. We’d never seen it. We didn’t know the rules. Now we understand it a little bit. I’m better at bowling.” Jota laughs and adds: “I’m bad at everything. But I try to bat and to catch the ball. I can’t throw that way [with a straight arm] – I throw like it’s baseball. But I like to go there and mess with them.”
Everything comes a lot more easily with a ball at their feet. Neves has caught the eye this season with his wonderful range of passing, and it feels a matter of time before Jota, Wolves’ top scorer last season, opens his Premier League account. “We want to make ourselves look good in the best league in the world,” Jota says. “When it was our first game, against Everton, I was very emotional, because it really means something for me. When I came on to the field, I thought: ‘I’m here’.”
Saturday’s visit to Old Trafford promises to be another special occasion, especially with José Mourinho in the opposite dugout. Neves, who grew up supporting Porto, can vividly remember their 2004 Champions League triumph under Mourinho, even though he was only seven. “I watched the final with my family,” he says. “We went into Porto to celebrate because all my family are fans. Mourinho is a legend at Porto.”
Rather surprisingly neither Neves nor Jota has spoken to Mourinho, despite plenty of common ground, including when it comes to their agent. Jorge Mendes represents all three and it is interesting listening to Jota’s response when asked how important Mendes is from a player perspective.
“He’s like my right arm,” Jota says. “I think from a player’s point of view, you feel you are with the best at his job. I feel there is no one better than him to manage my career, so I have nothing to worry about – just to do my job on the field. When you speak with him, he’s really ambitious and he says you can always do more. He’s very confident and believes in you more than you do yourself sometimes.”
Monica could probably do with Mendes’s help, too, because sadly Aromas de Portugal is on the market. Monica’s father is ill and the family have asked her to return home, meaning she is trying to find a new owner. All the catering equipment is included in the price and the same goes for a distinguished list of regular customers, provided the place remains in Portuguese hands. “We hope it does,” says Neves. “We have alternatives. But the best place for us is here.”
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