Paulinho

Paulinho is back where his career in Portuguese football took shape. After time away, the defender returned to Leixões, the club that later gave him the number 77 shirt he now wears on the right side of the back line.

Between his spells at Leixões, Paulinho spent three seasons at Moreirense, from 2012 to 2015, a stretch that took him away from the club he would eventually rejoin. That homecoming, confirmed by Leixões themselves, has been the defining thread of his career: a player who left, built himself up elsewhere, and found his way back to familiar surroundings.

At Leixões, Paulinho fills the right-back role, a position that asks as much of a player defensively as it does going forward down the flank. His return to the club was framed by Leixões as exactly that — a homecoming — rather than as just another transfer, and it is the detail that stands out most clearly from his time in the game so far.