Forgotten Premier League midfielder eyes revenge on former club after £35m move
Some seven years on from his ill-fated move to Inter Milan, Joao Mario has the chance to cap the best goalscoring season of his career by putting a dent in the Nerazzurri's armour.
The 2016-17 season was far from a memorable one for Inter. It started with Frank de Boer replacing Roberto Mancini in the dugout, but ended with the Italian giants preparing to hire a third different permanent manager since Mancini's exit.
A slew of summer signings had failed to gel under either De Boer or his short-lived successor Stefano Pioli. Portuguese starlet Joao Mario was the marquee arrival, joining in a £35m switch from Sporting CP after winning the Euros with Portugal, but he was one of many to flounder, never really building on his reputation as an exciting midfielder who could chip in with a few goals.
These days, those goals have finally started to arrive.
He has delivered a phenomenal 23 for Benfica in all competitions - representing nearly half of his career total - including efforts against Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain in this season's Champions League group stage and a penalty in each leg of the last-16 win over Club Brugge.
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It hasn't always been that way, though. In the 2017-18 season, with Luciano Spalletti in the dugout at the San Siro, Joao Mario didn't score a single goal in 14 Serie A outings. After losing his place before the halfway point in the season, with a lot of his appearances coming from the bench, he decided to give the Premier League a go.
The midfielder wound up at West Ham, joining the relegation-battling Hammers in David Moyes' only transfer window of his first spell in charge. Moyes didn't have a lot to work with - Jordan Hugill was the only player to arrive for a fee during that window, while the Hammers also picked up free agent Patrice Evra - but the loanee featured the most out of the trio.
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Joao Mario scored twice on loan at West Ham (West Ham United via Getty Images)Joao Mario was by no means a complete failure. His goals against Southampton and Leicester helped the Hammers survive, but fans might class him in the same category as Ilan or Emmanuel Emenike category of mid-season arrivals, rather than being grouped with the likes of Jesse Lingard or Demba Ba.
Certainly, there was little danger of a permanent switch. At least not for the £35m option they had upon agreeing the temporary signing.
The midfielder returned to Italy, but further loans would follow before he eventually left for good in 2021. Despite finishing the previous season back at Sporting, he would end up continuing his career at their fierce Lisbon rivals.
The midfielder never hit his best form in Inter colours (AFP/Getty Images)"It didn’t go very well but I learned a lot in Milan,” Joao Mario told SportMediaset in the autumn (via Onefootball ). "What I learned there helped make me the player I am now.”
One thing he has become is an accomplished penalty taker. More than half of his goals this term have come from the spot (12 of 23) - not bad for a player who didn't take a single penalty in senior club football until December 2020.
At the Estadio Da Luz last week, though, Joao Mario found himself on the wrong side of a penalty decision. It was his handball which prompted referee Michael Oliver to point to the spot following a VAR check, allowing Romelu Lukaku to score Inter's second goal in a 2-0 win.
Joao Mario has a chance to put his former club to the sword (Armando Franca/AP/REX/Shutterstock)Lukaku's penalty doubled Inter's lead, after Nicolo Barella had earlier put Simone Inzaghi's side in front. There are plenty of reasons for Benfica to believe the tie isn't over, though.
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Inter are in abysmal form domestically, taking just one point from their last five Serie A games to drop out of the top four. They are also no strangers to 2-0 home defeats on the continent, losing their group stage opener by that scoreline against Bayern Munich this season, and dropping out of last season's competition after Liverpool delivered two late away goals in the first leg of their last-16 meeting.
With 23 goals this term, Joao Mario has already provided plenty of evidence he is a different player to the one overlooked or under-utilised by a succession of Inter managers. This is his chance to show that, with a bit more patience, perhaps things could have gone differently.
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