Porro on the right path after falling under Pep’s radar
PEDRO PORRO lets out a little chuckle before considering his answer. How does he reflect on his time at Manchester City?
It is worth pointing out at this early juncture that, yes, Porro was once a City player. He spent nearly three years on the champions’ books but you would be forgiven for missing it.
He never played for the first team. He never trained with the squad. He never spoke to Pep Guardiola. He never held up the City shirt, grinning, in one of those new-signing announcement photo shoots. He never even made it to Manchester.
City signed the 19-year-old Porro on the final day of the summer transfer window in 2019 from Girona, the Spanish club they own, but he was immediately sent on loan to Valladolid. Porro had his medical in Girona and flew straight to his new club.
Porro’s only visit to the Etihad during his time at City was to play against them in the Champions League for Porto, another club to which he was farmed out on loan. The closest he had got before then was a pre-season training camp with Girona held at the City academy facility next door.
He returns to the Etihad this afternoon, this time as a key cog in Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham. An ideal moment, then, to consider what happened then and where he is now.
‘It’s not just in football, in any walk of life when you realise that you don’t fit in or not part of something, you have just got to get on with it,’ says Porro of his time at City. ‘You’ve got to follow your own path.
‘One thing I am as an individual, I’m very ambitious and I showed quite a lot of strength to come through that and to get where I am today by following my own path.
‘It’s cool. I have total respect for City. It happens in football, I just probably wasn’t in their plans at that time. When you are a footballer, you have to look for ways out of that situation, whether it’s a move or a loan.’
Porro’s path has brought him to Tottenham, who he joined on deadline day in January, initially on loan and then permanently in the summer for £40million. At last, he has found somewhere he belongs. He has been helped to settle, he says, by Christian Romero, Richarlison and Emerson. Eric Dier, too, who can speak Portuguese. Porro speaks here with an interpreter.
‘Whenever you go somewhere new to play, that settling in period is vital,’ he says. ‘It is a key to everything. From the first day, I have done my best to fit in and be a part of things and, apart from a bit of criticism I received from my first game, I have felt loved by the supporters. As a result of that, I feel very much at home. Long may that continue.’
Seeing as he mentioned it, how about that first game. Tottenham’s defeat by Leicester in February that led former Spurs boss Tim Sherwood to describe Porro’s performance as “so bad, it’s unbelievable”. ‘I’m pretty laid back about it,’ says Porro. ‘In football, everyone has an opinion. Everyone can criticise, it comes with the territory. What makes me happy is knowing I have everything to improve every day.’
Spurs head to City on the back of three defeats on the spin. They went from top of the table at the start of November to out of the top four by the end of the month.
They’ve not lost four in a row since 2004. And yet, amid the results and a personnel crisis that sees Tottenham without 11 first-team players through injury or suspension — ‘it’s the first time I’ve ever experienced anything like this’ — there’s still a sense of positivity around the place.
‘Look back at two of the last three games, no one would have argued if the score had been 4-0 to us after 25 minutes,’ says Porro. ‘We feel positive because we are doing the right things and performing well. What we have achieved so far this season is great. The mood is great.’
Porro will be up against rampaging City winger Jeremy Doku this afternoon and knows he has a battle on his hands. ‘Clearly, I’m not going to have an afternoon off,’ says Porro. ‘But neither is he!’