João Virgínia on career trajectory, playing for Amorim and Everton contract renewal | OneFootball

Portuguese goalkeeper João Virgínia enjoyed significant success as a youth player, notably helping the Seleção win the UEFA U19 European Championship in 2018. The Algarve-born shot-stopper has yet to enjoy similar success at senior level, but at just 25 years of age he still has time on his side.

Zach Lowy interviewed Virgínia for RG, during which the Everton goalkeeper made it clear his ambition is undimmed, stating his goal and his dream is to play for the full Portugal team one day.

For the past decade, Portugal’s class of 1999 has been viewed as a potential golden generation. In the 2016 UEFA European Under-17 Championship, they finished atop Group A and defeated Austria and the Netherlands before edging Spain on penalties in the final in Azerbaijan. Two years later, they entered the 2018 UEFA European Under-19 Championship with various key players missing, including João Félix, Diogo Dalot, and Rafael Leão, but nevertheless finished second in their group and advanced to the knockout round. After demolishing Ukraine 5-0, they made it to the final, where they edged Italy 4-3 in extra time.

From that victorious team in Finland, there are plenty of players who have managed to make a name for themselves at the senior level. David Carmo has won the Conference League with Olympiakos and earned a lucrative transfer to Nottingham Forest, Florentino Luís and Francisco Trincão have won the Portuguese championship with Benfica and Sporting, whilst Jota has won two league titles with Celtic. However, one player who hasn’t quite been able to make the transition to the senior level is João Virgínia.

From Lisbon to London

Born in Faro, Portugal, Virgínia left the Algarve for Lisbon in 2011 and joined Benfica’s academy, where he spent four years before making the move to Arsenal. Virgínia would spend three years in North London before joining Everton in 2018 following his impressive displays in Finland. Virgínia started in place of the injured Diogo Costa for the 2018 U19 Euros Final, whilst the following year would see Virgínia start over Costa in the FIFA U20 World Cup. But unlike Costa, who has been Portugal’s starting goalkeeper for the past three years and who has emerged as Porto’s captain, Virgínia hasn’t managed to lock down regular minutes at the top level. In total, he’s made just 37 senior club appearances in his entire career.

After struggling for minutes at Everton, Virgínia dropped down to Championship side Reading, where he spent just a few months before returning to Goodison Park. With minutes hard to come by, he returned to Lisbon and spent the 2021/22 season with Sporting CP, where he played second-fiddle to Antonio Adán.

Netherlands stop-off before Goodison return

Next stop was a loan deal in the Netherlands at SC Cambuur where he finally got a taste of consistent minutes in 2022/23 and was even named in the Eredivisie Team of the Month for November 2022, only to suffer a shaky return to action following the World Cup break and be dropped for the second half of the campaign. Since returning to Merseyside, he has failed to escape the shadow of Jordan Pickford, and with his contract set to expire this summer, he faces a crossroads in his career.

In an exclusive RG interview, Virgínia discussed various topics:

Leaving Faro for Lisbon at an early age: “I left my home in the Algarve when I was 11 and moved away from my parents to follow my dream of playing professional football. Benfica was such a great academy, such a great environment to be in at such a young age, and work with the best players in the country every day. You have to grow up quicker when you are in that kind of situation, and you have to learn a lot about the world sooner than normal people do when they go to college or when they’re older. It was a period of adaptation, but I think that that made me the person I am today, and I don’t regret it one bit.”

Adjusting to life in England: “The language was definitely the most difficult thing to adjust to. We’re taught English in Portugal, but it’s never the same as coming in and having to chat with native speakers. Everyone was talking so fast, and I was struggling to get on with it in the first few months and had to take a few lessons just to catch up. The weather was a big thing to adjust to; it was much colder and rainier in London, and I also don’t think England can compare to Portuguese food.”

Winning the U19 Euros: “It seems like a dream now. It’s been such a long time. Those names like João Félix and Rafael Leão were missing, but we had a few more players that people probably didn’t know about like Francisco Trincão, who just scored two goals versus Denmark. It’s a privilege going to such a big tournament and representing your country, it’s something I’m really proud of and can hopefully do again one day for the first team, and winning that crazy game 4-3 in extra time was amazing. This generation of players from 1999 was a great group of young players. We won the U17 Euros and the U19 Euros two years later, so it was fantastic. It’s probably the best moment of my youth career, but I think playing in the Premier League and debuting in the Champions League are probably my two biggest accomplishments.”

Francisco Trincão’s progression at Sporting: “He’s a great player, and a great lad as well. He’s very humble, very down-to-earth, and every time I played with him I felt like he’s got so much potential. He’s been at Barcelona already and obviously Barcelona was a tough move for him at a young age. But yeah, it’s good to see him performing every week at Sporting, and I was so happy when he scored for Portugal the other week. I was watching the game, and he came in and became the hero. He’s definitely a big factor in Sporting’s success lately, for sure.”

Style of play: “My biggest strength is my reflexes, my shot-stopping abilities. Lately, I’ve been thinking of my former teammate Emiliano Martínez a lot, and I think some parts of my game are very similar to Emi’s. I think he’s a bit crazier than me, I’m more relaxed and calmer, but there are a lot of goalkeepers to compare myself to, especially with the players and goalkeepers I’ve worked with.”

Room for improvement: “I think mostly what I need to improve is having more and more games, and with that, I will definitely feel more relaxed with myself. That’s the main thing I want, to be able to express myself every week. There are always things to improve on, whether it’s distribution or coming off your line, and if you want to reach your best level, you need to be working and improving every week.”

Working under Rúben Amorim at Sporting: “I had an amazing time. I came into a team that had been champions the previous year. I went back to Lisbon, back to Portugal, and it was so good especially being there with such a great coach in Rúben Amorim and Jorge Vital, who is probably one of the best goalkeeper coaches I’ve had. It was amazing, I really enjoyed it, especially winning my first major trophy at the club level in the Taça da Liga. Amorim has a different way of approaching players because he’s still young and only retired a few years ago, so he did a really good job of managing the group at Sporting. The team was always happy with whatever his decision was, which is not easy to do as a coach. As a goalkeeper, it was easier. You passed me the ball and I always knew where my defender was, where my midfielder was, where my striker was, and I just had two or three decisions to make.”

Diogo Costa’s meteoric progression: “Diogo is doing so well, so it’s good to see that as I played with him for all the youth national teams up until the U21 level. It’s good to see a teammate doing what he’s doing and captaining Porto. Obviously, I feel like I can compete with him. But firstly, I need to play at the club level. It’s one step at a time. Hopefully, one day I can compete with him for the number one spot in the national team.”

Potentially debuting for the Seleção: “I think about it every day. I want to perform and play and represent my country. It’s the biggest objective I have, to be there in that national team and be called up one day.”

Contract status: “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I love Everton, I love everything about it, and feel very comfortable here. Everton has the option to renew, it’s in their hands, and I’m waiting for them to do it. Obviously, I want to play and that weighs a lot, so I don’t know what’s going to happen in the summer until that contract is renewed, but let’s see. It’s their option. I have no say in it. If they want to renew, I will automatically stay for another year. And they have said they would want to do it, but they haven’t gone forward with it. That’s the situation I’m in at the moment. I’m very concentrated on playing for the rest of the season and doing my best. It’s hard to say because I really love being here, and having to wait for them to make a decision is really hard.”