Player profile: Fernando Gomes, the greatest ever striker born in Portugal | OneFootball

Few forwards who strolled around the pitches of Portuguese football have been so elegant, so clinical, so unique. Fernando Gomes was one of a kind. One of the first wonderkids of FC Porto, the club he supported from which he departed to later come back only to leave in disarray, Gomes was also the second Portuguese striker awarded the coveted Golden Boot trophy, a testament to his goal prowess.

At a time when the Portuguese game was starting to learn to live without the shadow of Eusébio, Gomes was the frontman of a series of talented strikers who never quite achieved the same accolades, despite leading Portugal to a return to the international stage and back to club glory. No Portuguese striker, bar Cristiano Ronaldo, who for so long was more of a winger, has ever been as good. Perhaps, no-one ever will be.

Vienna no-show, glory in Tokyo

At the most iconic moment in the history of his club, Gomes was nowhere to be seen. A painful memory that, perhaps, has stolen part of the appeal Gomes had outside Portugal. His sole experience abroad was not good – even more so because he was following the footsteps of a giant of a footballer – and Portugal’s record internationally was by then tainted by the disastrous World Cup in Mexico. Not taking part on that iconic night in Vienna, the one that immortalised the Maradonian sprint by Paulo Futre and the classy back-heel touch of Rabath Madjer as Porto became European champions, hurt.

Perhaps it is why, months later, when many were starting to call for a postponement of the Intercontinental Cup final in Tokyo, Gomes was one of the ones who wanted to play at all costs. It was his moment, and it proved to be. He not only scored the first goal of the day, against the tough defence of Peñarol, but he also got the chance denied in Austria to lift the coveted trophy to the sky and appear on every front page around the world. Football owed him that and he was happy to collect. Thirty-one years before few could possibly imagine that his fate would be as golden as on that snowy day.

Fernando Gomes scored on a snowy Tokyo pitch against Peñarol as Porto won the Intercontinental Cup in 1987

Porto born and bred

Fernando Gomes was born in 1956 in the heart and soul of the city of Porto. He was one of four children of a middle-class family – three boys and a girl – growing up around the Campanhã neighbourhood, his favourite playing field as he got older. People started to notice him when he played in school tournaments at the Alexandre Herculano high school, where he also excelled at handball, and by the time he reached 14, Gomes decided to present itself at the Constituição training pitches for FC Porto youth sides after being invited by scout António Feliciano, who had seen him shine in a local five-a-side tournament held at the Académico facilities.

The Constituição had been Porto’s first-team ground up until the inauguration of the Antas stadium, in 1952, and now it was where all the kids in town flocked to grab a chance to play for the blue and whites. A hardcore club supporter, Gomes got to stay as many were told coldly to return home. For three years he became renowned as the most talented forward ever to grace the youth ranks of the club. There was no precedent, no memory of someone quite as talented as he was. It was a time when clubs rarely cared for youth setup and young players as football was still seen pretty much as a tough, physical game, and few were granted chances in the first team without having been loaned for years to smaller sides to “man up”. Gomes nutmegged such a fate when Belá Guttman spotted him train with the under 20s.

Two-goal debut the sign of things to come

The man who had raised Eusébio at Benfica saw in him similar traits but the manager was out by the end of the season and so it was the Brazilian coach Aimoré Moreira who eventually promoted him to the first team. Gomes was still 17. Granted his debut on a match against CUF at the start of the 1974/75 season, the youngster scored both goals and won the club supporters’ hearts forever. A year later he was already a Portuguese international, although his first goal came only in 1978, in his seventh cap.

Gomes arrived at Porto’s first team at a time when the club was in disarray. Without a league title since 1959, Porto had been surpassed by the likes of Vitoria FC and Boavista in their fight for the title against the powerhouses of Lisbon, Benfica and Sporting. The club had talented players such as Pavão, António Oliveira and the Peruvian signing Teofilo Cubillas, but were unable to mount a decent title challenge. Everything changed in 1976 when Américo de Sá finally persuaded Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa to take up the sports director role, a move only possible when the former manager and player José Maria Pedroto accepted to return to das Antas to revamp the club’s entire football identity.

Gomes excels under Pedroto

Pedroto already knew Gomes well from the national side – he served as manager for Portugal at the time – and was quick to understand how this talented young forward who was not highly technically gifted but had a positional sense second to none, would be key in his lineup. In his first season in charge, Pedroto led the Dragões to a Portuguese Cup win and finished runner-up to Benfica. Gomes scored 26 goals in 28 matches – he had scored 24 in the two previous seasons – winning the Bola de Prata award for league’s top scorer for the first time. Behind him in the final table were Nené from Benfica and Manuel Fernandes, from Sporting, his two most notorious rivals over the following decade.

Fernando Gomes helped Portugal return to international fold as part of the Euro 1984 and World Cup 1986 squads

Gomes would win the award twice more in the following seasons as his goals were instrumental to Pedroto’s success. Porto won back-to-back league honours between 1978 and 1979, putting an end to almost two decades of hurt. Oliveira was the mastermind, but Gomes netted the decisive goals and returned the club to its glory days. In 1979/80 he was bested by Rui Jordão, another iconic forward of his generation, and Nené and, worst of all, Porto lost the title to Sporting, a defeat that eventually cost Pedroto his job. That was a convenient excuse. Pedroto was mainly removed because he opposed how the club’s president, Américo de Sá, was positioning himself in the media war instigated by both he and Pinto da Costa, who had lashed out against the Lisbon press and institutions.

Gomes joins teammates on strike

Loved by all of his players, Pedroto’s demise triggered a chain reaction that had all the squad declaring themselves on strike, refusing to play for any other manager as the 1980/81 season was about to begin. Led by Gomes, Otávio Machado, António Oliveira and Rodolfo Reis, the players rented a house north of town and trained by themselves, believing that they had the upper hand. As public supported faded, inevitably they were forced to reach a compromise. All the players eventually decided to resume training, all bar three who stayed true to both Pedroto and Pinto da Costa until the very end.

Unhappy Spanish sojourn

Otávio moved back to Setúbal, Oliveira signed for Penafiel and Gomes moved to Spain, where he was bound to replace the nation’s most beloved striker, Quini, at his home club Sporting Gijón. Despite what you may think now, back then Gijón were a side that fought for honours, manly thanks to Quini’s goals. Gomes managed to actually score five past Sporting’s greatest rivals, Real Oviedo, but a mixture of unfortunate injuries and difficulty in adapting to living abroad, meant the following seasons were a disaster.

Triumphant Antas return

By 1982, however, life smiled back to Gomes. Pinto da Costa decided to run for office and made the striker’s return to the club a key point of his campaign. A few months later, he delivered, Gomes being signed back to lead the attack of a renewed side once again coached by Pedroto. Few of the players that had won the 1978/79 titles were still around as the manager decided to bring forward a new generation where the likes of Zé Beto, João Pinto, António Sousa, Jaime Pacheco, António Frasco and Lima Pereira gained relevance. Gomes, a club icon already, was entrusted with the captain’s armband to inspire this new generation to greater feats.

He first helped by winning the 1983 Portuguese Cup which, in turn, led to the almost perfect European campaign the following year that saw Porto reach their first ever continental final, lost in Basel against Platini’s Juventus. Pedroto, by then consumed by cancer, was already out of the dugout, succeeded by Artur Jorge as club manager. Gomes was one of the first to embrace the change at a time when he was indisputably Portugal’s greatest player of the day. He had just won his first European Golden Shoe back in 1983 – scoring 36 goals – and had also been a pivotal figure in the national side’s unexpected although incredible campaign at the Euros in France.

In 1984/85, as Artur Jorge took the reins and a young promising winger landed at das Antas, a certain Paulo Futre, Gomes found himself rejuvenated. At 28 he was enjoying a decade in the elite and was at his best, leading Porto once again to back-to-back league titles, with the 1985/86 season ending up as his best campaign ever, 39 goals scored and a second Golden Boot on the way.

A little help from a Brazilian psychic

Ironically, he had won the award while injured, missing the last four league matches and many believed he could have scored more than 40 goals. Gomes himself thought the award was lost when he was informed by the medical staff of the extended injury only for Delane Vieira, a Brazilian psychic who worked for the club thanks to Pinto da Costa´s well-known fascination for the mysterious, to guarantee that his rival, Linfield striker Martin McGaughey would also be victim of injury until the end of season. Coincidence or not, McGaughey did indeed miss the final matches and Gomes finally equalled Eusebio’s record and earned himself a nickname that stuck forever: Bibota, meaning bi (or two-time) winner of the boot.

Fernando Gomes twice won the Golden Boot as the top goalscorer in European football, earning him the "Bibota" nickname

Leg break robs Gomes of European Cup final

With Futre and Madjer added to the front line, Porto’s offensive trio was one of the deadliest in European football. Madjer brought skill, Futre speed and Gomes clinical finishing. Supported by a tough midfield and an iron defensive quartet, the Dragons kickstarted the 1986/87 season with high hopes and although they were unable to win a third consecutive league title once again, they did manage to surprise everyone in European football by reaching the European Cup final against mighty Bayern Munich. After beating the likes of Vitkovic, Brondby and a much-fancied Dynamo Kiev side, Porto were clearly the underdogs in the final and more so when disastrous news reached the club supporters. Gomes, captain and top scorer, had been ruled out of the most important game in the club’s history with a broken leg, an injury sustained in training.

It was a disastrous moment for the captain but still Porto prevailed, and subsequently with Tomislav Ivic as manager, Gomes won the European Super Cup and the Intercontinental Cup as well as the league and cup double, making it the club’s most successful campaign ever. Ivic, however, was the first to warn the board that Gomes’ best years were behind him. He was finished, the Yugoslav proclaimed, much to the dislike of the player.

Pushed out

However, Ivic was out by the end of the season, and his successor, Quinito, a former teammate of Gomes in the seventies Porto side, was quick to announce that, for him, the starting lineup would always be Gomes plus ten. Things didn’t turn out quite that way. Quinito was out by winter and Artur Jorge was called back, bringing Otávio Machado as assistant. There was a personal grudge and rivalry between Gomes and his former teammate Otávio and things went sour. Gomes forced the new manager’s hand on a trip to Madeira and acknowledging that Ivic might have had a point, Pinto da Costa decided to side with the manager and suspended Gomes.

Finishing with a flourish

By the end of the season, he was out of his childhood club, this time for the last time as player. Signing for Sporting was a clear statement as he desperately wanted to prove that he was far from past his best. In his last season, 1990/91 he netted 22 goals almost winning a seventh Bola de Prata, a worthy final curtain for a legendary goalscorer.

Despite the conflict that forced him out of Porto, he was not the kind of person to hold a grudge and eventually returned home to serve in different capacities over the years. He also set the bar extremely high for any academy graduate as the likes of Domingos Paciência, Hélder Postiga or Fábio Silva, to name but a few, well know. Porto never again produced such a talented forward in their ranks and that same probably applies to Portuguese football. His impact was such that Nuno Ribeiro, a promising young forward from Amarante, decided to re-christen himself as Nuno Gomes once he was signed by Boavista, before becoming a legend at da Benfica.

Second only to Eusébio and Peyroteo

Only behind Eusébio and Fernando Peyroteo in goals scored in Portuguese domestic tournaments, Fernando Gomes, who sadly passed away in 2022 a victim of cancer, is more than just a Porto icon. He throws the memory back to a time when Portugal was still able to produce talented strikers in abundance. It may take a while until we get to see someone like him again.