He turned out for Nottingham Forest, Norwich City & played with Cristiano Ronaldo - now he’s still playing at 35 | OneFootball

Former Norwich City and Nottingham Forest striker Nelson Oliveira has dropped into the Portuguese second division.

The EFL has had many potentially great but faded talents play across its three divisions in the last few years and perhaps one of the more surprising and underwhelming of those talents was former Portugal international striker Nelson Oliveira.

Once a genuine prodigy that many may have viewed as the ideal profile and with the potential to go on and be a genuine star for Portugal, Nelson Oliveira was given opportunities but never quite fulfilled that brief.

He remained a coup when he played in the EFL for the likes of Nottingham Forest and Norwich City, as well as Reading, in the mid-to-late-2010s – but flashes of his quality were all that they were.

Flashes of quality but a general inconsistency has eventually led to the inevitable fate of finding himself having to drop into the Portuguese second-tier at the age of 35.

The rise of Nelson Oliveira as a Portugal international

Having come through the academies of Sporting Braga and then Lisbon giants Benfica, where he would go on to begin his professional career, Nelson Oliveira was highly-rated from the off.

Loan stints at Rio Ave and Pacos de Ferreira were underwhelming before breaking until the first-team at Benfica, making 22 appearances across all competitions for the Portuguese giants in the 2011-12 campaign.

Despite failing to score in 12 Liga Portugal games, Oliveira earned a Portugal call-up in the spring of 2012 and was a surprise inclusion in their UEFA EURO 2012 squad that reached the semi-finals, even coming off the bench in their semi-final defeat to eventual winners Spain.

Oliveira moved on loan to La Liga outfit Deportivo La Coruna, up the road from the Northern Portuguese border and into Galicia, but Depor succumbed to relegation that season with Oliveira notching just four times in 30 La Liga appearances.

The potential seen in him as a youth player for Portugal and at Benfica, as well as more impressive performances for country rather than club, did earn him another top-flight European loan move to Stade Rennais.

In France, Oliveira doubled his previous season’s tally as he notched eight in 30 Ligue 1 appearances to help Rennes finish firmly in the middle-of-the-table.

Again still not trusted to be a fundamental part of the first-team picture at Estadio da Luz by Jorge Jesus, Oliveira was loaned out to Swansea City, then in the Premier League, mid-way through the campaign.

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At Swansea, Oliveira scored his only goal in a dramatic 3-2 victory over Newcastle United in April, scoring the equaliser as The Jacks came from 2-0 down to win.

He failed to overthrow Bafetimbi Gomis as the predominant successor to Manchester City-bound Wilfried Bony, though, and would have to take a step down in the summer of 2015 – and into the EFL.

Once again on loan, Nottingham Forest signed Oliveira for the 2015-16 season, part of something of a Portuguese influx at the City Ground that would see Lica, Hildeberto Pereira, Joao Teixeira, Tobias Figueiredo, Joao Carvalho, Gil Dias and Diogo Goncalves all move in the next few years.

With Forest, Oliveira showed signs of quality with a nine-goal return in 28 Championship appearances as The Reds finished 16th under Dougie Freedman until March and then Paul Williams on an interim basis.

After being the top scorer for an underperforming Forest side, Oliveira joined Norwich City on a permanent basis in the summer of 2018.

With The Canaries, Oliveira was a polarising figure with, yet again, signs of promise and quality often undermined by a flimsy inconsistency and occasional injury.

He hit 11 goals in his debut campaign at Carrow Road following City’s relegation from the Premier League before beginning to fall down the pecking order a year later after the appointment of eventual two-time Norwich promotion-winning manager Daniel Farke.

A fallout between Farke and Oliveira led to the Portuguese striker being frozen out in the first half of his second season in charge before being loaned out to Reading in January 2019.

Oliveira scored three goals in ten Championship games for The Royals before embarking upon a new phase in his career in the summer of 2019.

The faded career of Nelson Oliveira

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Nelson Oliveira enjoyed his best individual season with AEK Athens in the 2019-20 Greek Super League campaign, having initially linked up with compatriot Miguel Cardoso – who had previously been an assistant and youth coach at Braga.

Cardoso departed in late-August after AEK lost a UEFA Europa League play-off round tie but that didn’t prevent Oliveira from spearheading a reasonable campaign in which they finished third, reached the cup final – with Oliveira top scorer, netting 16 times across all competitions.

The Portuguese forward endured a more familiar injury-hit and inconsistent 2020-21 season before a tough debut campaign in Thessaloniki at PAOK Salonika, where he could manage just five Greek Super League games.

His following season at the Toumba was improved but didn’t prevent him being shipped out to Konyaspor for half of the 2023-24 campaign before returning to Portugal to join Vitoria Guimaraes in January 2024.

More of a bit-part player but closer to him having been born in Barcelos and come through at Braga, the move to Vitoria saw Oliveira contribute meaningfully to them finishing fifth in the 2023-24 campaign, sixth a year later and ninth in the 2025-26 campaign.

Despite an underwhelming final league season in Guimaraes, Oliveira won just his second major honour as he captained Vitoria in their Taca da Liga final defeat of Jose Mourinho’s Benfica.

After close to a whole summer without a club, Oliveira struggled to find a landing spot before eventually signing a deal with Farense – down in the second-tier of Portuguese football.

Once a bright spark coming through the Benfica academy and trusted to become a potential star alongside Cristiano Ronaldo in attack for the Selecao, Oliveira instead experienced a journeyman-like career of inconsistency and injury spanning Spain, France, Wales, England and Greece before returning to Portugal and now embarking upon a new era in the Portuguese lower leagues.