RUBEN COMES IN FROM THE COLD
DRIVING to Manchester in early December, Ruben Lameiras must have wondered where it all went wrong.
From playing with Harry Kane at Spurs, the 23-year-old playmaker was unwanted by Plymouth and had been consigned to hawking his wares on trial at Oldham.
“I wasn’t really in Derek Adams’ plans and he was honest about that,” recalls Lameiras, who joined the Pilgrims from Coventry in the summer.
“He told me I was free to go to Oldham, so I went up there to see how things were.
“I played a game for them on the Monday night, did OK, then next morning I got a call from Plymouth asking me to come back.”
That Saturday – to even his own surprise – Lameiras was named in Adams’ first team. The opponents? Oldham.
“Everyone was joking that I’d just been sent up to do a bit of digging,” he laughs. “To be honest, though, I think it was just that the set-up of the team hadn’t suited me.
“The manager looked at it, thought ‘I’m going to try something new – a bit more freedom, a bit more creativity’. He knew that. if he brought me in, I could provide that.”
And how! Since Adams’ volte-face, the Pilgrims have won ten of their last 13 games to climb from 20th to sixth in League One. And Lameiras, with four goals and five assists, has become the first name on the team sheet.
Winning over a sceptical manager is no mean feat, but then Lameiras is accustomed to a stiff challenge.
The midfielder was just ten when his parents left their native Portugal for a new life in south London.
“I had to learn English pretty much from scratch,” recalls Lameiras, who now sounds like a thoroughbred Lewisham local.
“It was difficult settling in, but I’m a very determined person. When I set my mind to something, I’m set on getting through it.
“Our quality of life was very difficult in Portugal. There wasn’t much money, not many jobs. You’ve got the really rich and the really poor - there’s no real way to progress. So they set out for a better future.
“I met a lot of people through football. It attracts people from different cultures, different backgrounds. I always felt welcome.
“And that experience of settling in has definitely helped me in my career.”
As a teenager, Lameiras played in academy games for Arsenal, Chelsea and Millwall, who released him for being too small. Determined as ever, he ploughed on and joined Spurs.
Nabil Bentaleb, now at Schalke, was a peer. Harry Winks was a year below. And, one year older but a frequent teammate, was England striker Kane.
“We played quite a few Under-21 games together,” says Lameiras, right at
Spurs. “The thing about Harry is that he’s always been the same. Even then, he was always out there on his own, practising his finishing after everyone had gone home.
“Like a lot of players, all he needed was a break at the highest level. And, once he was playing well with his confidence up, he was always going to fly.” For Lameiras, who also spent time on loan with Swedish side Atvidaberg (“great experience, but freezing cold”), that break never came. In 2015 he joined Coventry, scoring seven goals in 69 games before suffering relegation to League Two last season. “Once you’ve experienced men’s football, it shakes up your mentality,” he says.
“You’re playing for three points, things that matter, and it makes it very difficult to go back and play for nothing. I couldn’t stay at Spurs after that.”
Long-term, says Lameiras, the aim is a return to the Premier League. For now, he simply wants to make the most of an unexpected opportunity.
“After a few games, my confidence just shot up,” he says. “Now I feel like I can just keep pushing on and on. I’m determined not to get overlooked again.”