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Spurs Chase Cristiano Ronaldo's Mascot (inc VIDEO)


Spurs Chase Cristiano Ronaldo's Mascot



Spurs are chasing Cristiano Ronaldo's mascot, or at least his mascot 11 years ago. We are not alone though, clubs like Bayern Munich have their eye on him too, unsurprisingly.

It is being reported by Portuguese newspaper Record that Tottenham have stepped up their interest in
João Filipe, also known as Jota.

The Portugal Under-21 (1 goal in 5 caps) left winger or should I say left-sided attacker or left-sided inverted winger is said to have a £26.35 million (€30m) release clause.

Jota can also play as a second striker or on the other wing and at 20 (21 next March) has plenty of scope for improvement. The youngster would be one for the future and go into our Development Squad one would assume initially, while training with the first team as he is playing in Liga Pro and not the Primera Liga for Benfica in Portugal.

In Liga Pro he had 8 assists and scored 8 goals in 20 appearances. He also played in the Youth League, which is the youngsters Champions League, where he scored twice and played 62 minutes in the UEFA Europa League at home to Dynamo Zagreb as a second striker. in a 3-0 victory after extra time in the last 16 2nd leg tie.

Why then are all the top clubs interested in him?

Well, he is highly talented and was named as a player to look out for when playing for Portugal at Under-18 level. It was thought he could develop into a world class, not just an international class player, there is a difference, a big difference.

He stood out at the Under-19 European Championships, which Portugal won for the 4th time beating Italy in the final 4-3 in 2018 in Finland. João Filipe was the joint top scorer with teammate Francisco Trincão at the tournament with 5 goals. They had progressed from winning the Under-17 European Championships 2 years earlier.

Jota was involved in everything good Portugal did, whether it be scoring or creating, indeed he was involved in virtually every goal one way or another. In a talented Portugal side, he stood out and scored two goals in the final itself, as well as two in the semi-final.

Benfica fans know he will leave the Estadio da Luz, for them, it is just a question of when and with Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino showing he is not afraid to play talented youngsters, Tottenham could be a good fit.

He hasn't actually yet played for the senior Benfica team, but he will soon outgrow the Portuguese league.

He could well go straight into the first team squad at Spurs because he is a player beyond his years. If I said he was tenacious, determined, skillful, quick, technically-gifted and with an eye for goal, it sounds as if i'm talking about Erik Lamela, who was expected to go on and achieve far greater than he has. I don't know but I would hope he has a better mentality than Lamela and determines to have more of an end product in the senior game.

I harp back again to the comment from Raheem Stirling that in his younger days it was about looking good, basically ego driven football, rather than producing an end product for the team, now it is scoring goals, so effectiveness, not just fancy flicks and step-overs to look good.

That is something Lamela is still guilty of in my view and how every player should be looked at, is there an end product?

João Filipe runs at defenders, cuts inside and runs across the front line and seems to have a good footballing brain. He, at the level he is playing at, seems to make the right decisions and has a high work ethic.


It certainly sounds as if the Tottenham scouting team have done their homework for Pochettino and despite not making signings, this is the type of player Spurs have been trying to sign, the very best young talent. 

We tried to sign both Matthijs de Ligt and Frankie de Jong, Anthony Martial, Timo Werner, three of those have significantly improved since. With better resources now we may be in with a better chance of capturing some of the young talent out there, like Jota.

In Portugal, they think he is destined for greatness.

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