Gonçalo Mendes Paciência

Paciência worked his way from Porto B into the first team, though rarely as a fixture, and picked up a Primeira Liga title and a Portuguese Super Cup along the way, both earned more as a squad member than a regular starter.

What shaped his career more than any single Porto appearance was the run of loans that followed: Académica, a brief spell at Olympiacos, then Rio Ave and Vitória de Setúbal, each one a chance to get consistent minutes away from a crowded forward line. It worked well enough that Eintracht Frankfurt paid Porto around €3m for him in the summer of 2018. In Frankfurt he found his most productive years, and the high point came at Wembley in the DFB-Pokal final, where Eintracht beat Bayern Munich 3-1. Years later, after a loan at Schalke 04, he was still on Frankfurt's books when the club won the 2021-22 Europa League — a title he shared in without featuring in the final itself.

A free transfer took him to Celta Vigo in 2022, but his time there produced only sporadic involvement, and after a single appearance in his second season he moved on loan to Bochum, where he found a heavier run of games. Spells followed at Sanfrecce Hiroshima in Japan and Sport Recife in Brazil, before he joined Santa Clara.

At international level, Paciência worked through every Portuguese youth age group, including a place in the squad for the 2016 Olympics, but his senior career amounted to two caps. His only goal for Portugal came in a 6-0 win over Lithuania during Euro 2020 qualifying in November 2019.