João Pedro Fortes Bachiessa

The move that took João Pedro Fortes Bachiessa out of Portugal came on 7 September 2022, when Krasnodar paid a reported €1.5 million to GD Chaves and handed him a three-year contract. He had spent four years at Chaves by then, the first in the reserve side and three more in the first team, without going up to the Primeira Liga with them.

Before Chaves there was a long apprenticeship in and around Lisbon. Benfica took him at ten and kept him for three years; Real SC had him for the four seasons after that. Then came a year at Oriental and a year at Tondela, each short, before he settled at Chaves in 2018.

Born in Sintra, he plays for Angola. His first cap came on 1 September 2021 in a World Cup qualifier against Egypt. Four years on he had three caps and no goals.

At Krasnodar he has been a regular part of the squad since arriving. It is the only title on his record, and it arrived in a league he had no history with before the move.

He is known in Portugal and beyond as João Batxi, the name that follows him from the Chaves years into the Russian ones.