by The right-back leaves Nantes and, despite receiving more offers, Sporting won the race. After a five-year break, which still continues, as he competes in France, the Portugal international will once again don the green and white, the kit with which he won everything in Portugal.
Pedro Portela, who has been in France for five seasons, the first three at Treble and the last at Nantes, will return to Sporting, the club he represented for 11 seasons. Portela, 33, from the generation of silver medalists at the U20 World Cup in Slovakia in 2010, will return to his homeland as he was, then, as Leiriense, having taken up handball at the Académico de Leiria when he was ten years old.
The right-back, once linked with Benfica, has now received other offers to continue his career but will return to Portugal next season to strengthen the club with whom he won two league titles, three Portuguese Cups, one Super Cup and two Challenge Cups. At coaching levels, he was also a two-time Panhellenic junior champion.
For the lions, it will be to welcome back an athlete who knows his home like few others, of great technical quality, who has two Europeans (2020 and 2022), two World Cups (2021 and 2023) and an Olympic Games under his feet. – This is a special participation, as handball was the only form in the Portuguese pavilion that managed to reach this level. Portela, who scored 18 goals in six games at the recent World Cup, is already the fifth most capped Portuguese player of all time, with 227 appearances – 125 of them A, with 419 goals -, 26 short of equaling Carlos Resende in third place. .
For manager Ricardo Costa, it will be increasing the number of Portuguese players in the squad – there is still the possibility of bringing back Luis Frante – which he particularly values, with the possibility of Sporting having a majority of Portuguese players again.
Contacted by O JOGO, both Pedro Portela and Carlos Carneiro, director of handball, were quite polite but understandably did not want to talk.
Luís Frade will also be able to return to the João Rocha Pavilion
In addition to Pedro Portela, Luís Frade, 24, could also return to Sporting, the club where he played the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons, after signing from Águas Santas, the banner where he started his training of modality. . Representing Barcelona for three seasons, Frade, who this week was the linchpin of the Champions League Round 11 perfect seven – seven goals on nine shots in Barça’s 40-30 win over Elverum – has two Champions League in the second leg.
