Hélder Cristóvão hails ex-Benfica man: "His quality stands out" | OneFootball

At 28 years old, João Carvalho is having the best season of his career with Estoril. In 20 games, the midfielder has recorded five goals and seven assists, totaling 12 goal involvements. Hélder Cristóvão, who coached the midfielder at Benfica B from 2014 to 2018, still remembers the times he worked with the player in Seixal, where he stood out due to his technical skills.

"As a person, excellent. Very well-mannered, educated, shy, and very cherished by everyone. He had respect and was very popular among his peers, and we all had one thing in common: we admired his technical quality. From there, it was about developing the player. He always had above-average quality, with great technical skills," he began by saying to the newspaper Record.

Cristóvão, a former Benfica center-back - who sees the former player shining in France - and Estoril, now 54 years old, believes that the goal-scoring 'click' happened with the midfielder's loan to V. Setúbal in the second half of the 2016/17 season: "The click happened when José Couceiro came to get him for V. Setúbal. We talked a bit about João and what I thought he needed to improve to be at a Primeira Liga club, that he needed to focus more on the goal in the final moment."

"Everything else was perfect, but that detail was missing: scoring goals to become a more complete player. The stint at V. Setúbal did him a lot of good, outside the Benfica bubble, it was a starting point. His journey shows that everyone sees him with quality, Olympiacos, Nottingham Forest... He has now found at Estoril the space and a coach that allows him to be himself, to create, to be involved in the game with a lot of the ball, but he also sacrifices a lot for the team," the coach stated.

Hélder, who also played for clubs like PSG, Newcastle, or Deportivo during his career, believes that at 28, João Carvalho is ready to take the leap: "I would even say that there are few Portuguese players with that decision-making ability in the final third. He is 28 years old, at the peak of his career, and I think he still has time to make the leap elsewhere, but I think he is very happy at Estoril."

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.