Former Everton full-back Ruben Vinagre has revealed the medical team at the club may have ended up saving him, as they convinced him to undergo surgery on an injury.
A Bola have an interview with the defender today in which he discusses various topics, although his disappointing spells in England are not a part of it.
The 25-year-old has had a varied career to date, starting out in Portugal before moving to Monaco and then heading to Wolves in 2017. That was the first of three loan spells in England.
He then spent time at Olympiacos and Famalicão before joining Sporting again, first on loan then on a permanent basis in 2022.
They immediately shipped him out to Everton where he failed to make the grade, managing just four appearances totalling 204 minutes at Goodison Park before being returned to his parent club.
From there he’s also played for Hull City on another unsuccessful loan and then Hellas Verona and Legia Warsaw, who made the move permanent in February for €2.5m.
The defender doesn’t look back on those various spells with any sort of fondness, but his time at Everton had one major benefit for him.
“It didn’t weigh on me, because I like to have that responsibility. You just have that responsibility it’s good,” he said regarding Sporting paying €10m for 50% of his rights.
“And in my opinion, it’s simple: only those who have pressure are good. If they put that pressure on me, it was because they believed I was good. If it weighed on what happened, I have no idea. I felt that in Sporting, after the injury, I could never fight to show my true value again.
“Because the injury was not treated well, I ended up having surgery later, later, the next year. Only after this operation I felt, okay, I’m back to my level.
“At the time it was decided not to operate, and later, after realising that I had a lot of difficulties doing a lot of things, I talked to experts at Everton, and everyone said they had to operate. They operated and it was the best thing I did in my life, because even walking… (was difficult).”
