Move over Cristiano Ronaldo, for Portugal have another speedy saviour to savour.
With the Iberians inhibited by the Czech Republic in their Euro 2024 Group F encounter on June 18, up stepped 90th-minute substitute Francisco Conceicao who took less than two minutes to score the winner in their 2-1 victory with his first international goal.
Just who is this son of a former international who has seized his opportunity to shine?
1. Like father, like sons
Born in Coimbra, Francisco’s father is former Portugal international and former Porto coach Sergio Conceicao, who is so well-regarded, the municipal government named a local 2,500-seater stadium – the Estadio Municipal Sergio Conceicao – in his honour.
Francisco, 21, is the fourth of five football-playing sons who all seem to fancy playing on the flanks like their father.
Sergio, 27, is a right-back who has not hit such great heights as he plies his trade for Feirense in the Portuguese second division. Rodrigo, 24, also plays on the right flank and won two cups with his dad at Porto before joining Swiss side FC Zurich.
Moises is a 23-year-old winger who has just been promoted to second-tier Leixoes’ first team, while nine-year-old Jose plays as a forward for the Porto academy.
But it is Francisco who has followed most closely in his father’s footsteps. His match-winning goal against the Czechs came almost exactly 24 years to the day his dad scored a hat-trick in a 3-0 win over Germany at Euro 2000.
2. Rotating with Ronaldo
Ronaldo was just breaking into the national team in 2003 when Sergio senior was winding up his international career, effectively replaced by CR7.
Twenty-one years on, 39-year-old Ronaldo is still setting records by playing in his sixth European Championship, this time alongside Francisco, who is now staking a claim to be his successor with the sort of dramatic late winner that has long been Ronaldo’s trademark.
3. He is also compared with Messi
Standing at 1.70m, Francisco has the same height as Lionel Messi, leading to comparisons with the Argentina legend as he also has quick pace, delicate ball control and composure on the ball.
He is thus nicknamed by fans and media outlets as Messi do Olival in reference to the territory where Porto’s training ground sits.
4. Speed bumps
Francisco came through the youth ranks at Belenenses and Sporting Lisbon before his father took him to Porto. After rising to the second team, he won the league and cup double with the first team in 2021 and earned a move to Dutch giants Ajax.
However, he struggled as he did not speak Dutch or English, and went back to Porto on loan after a goalless season over 19 games in the Eredivisie, even if he did score five times in seven second-division matches.
Back in Portugal, he scored in the league, cups and Champions League and completed the recently concluded season with eight goals and eight assists across 43 games. It was his most prolific campaign yet as his return was made permanent.
Francisco said: “I thought this was the best thing for me, knowing that things hadn’t gone so well at Ajax. I think there are always positive points to take away from an experience.
“It was a difficult time. I went out with the aim of showing what I’m worth, I couldn’t do it, I thought about what was missing, it’s always our fault. I tried to hold on to that, see what was missing and returned to FC Porto. It was the right decision.”
5. Best of the rest
In a study commissioned by the International Centre for Sports Studies’ football observatory, Francisco was listed as the best dribbler in a non big-five league, with Manchester City’s Jeremy Doku winning the accolade for the big five leagues – the English Premiership, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga, Italian Serie A and French Ligue 1.
The study, conducted between April 2023 and March 2024, analysed 73 championships and was based on the calculation of the frequency of successful dribbles achieved by players.
The dribble is considered successful only when his team continued ball possession and approached the opposite goal or if there is a foul on whoever tried to execute it. The level of competition in which the footballers played was also taken into account.
