Raised in a small town near Porto,

the schoolboy José Fonte was signed by Sporting Lisbon as a forward and played in the same youth team as Ronaldo.

But he matured into a centre-back. His career in Portugal took off after he joined Setúbal and Portugal U-21 caps duly followed. Ronald Koeman then took him to Benfica. But when Koeman was succeeded by Fernando Santos, who had been his manager from Sporting, José was soon out on loan, at first in Portugal but then at Crystal Palace, under Peter Taylor. Helped to settle by the presence in London of his younger brother, Rui, who was on Arsenal’s books, José blossomed at Selhurst Park – especially once Neil Warnock took over, he says. But as Palace’s financial situation worsened and they moved into administration, Southampton were able to sign José on a three-and-a-half year contract.

After three seasons of Championship football, he was opting to play in League One. But he “liked the project” at St Mary’s, trusting in the chairman’s “ambition, drive and investment.” He made an immediate impact. Tall, wiry and skilful, he established a formidable partnership with the colossus that was Radhi Jaidi. Their warm-up act was to lift the JP Trophy in 2010.

Their follow-up was promotion from League One in 2011, when José was the fans’ Player-of-the-Year and one of five Southampton players named in the PFA’s divisional “team” of-the-season. If anyone wondered whether his relative shortage of pace might sometimes catch him out against Championship strikers, José had two reasons to be confident: he’d played 82 times at this level for Palace; and he believes that “if you have the quality, you can play anywhere.” And so, despite needing pre-match injections to play 15 matches with two broken toes, his partnership with Jos Hooifeld was a solid, regular feature as the Saints stormed to a second successive promotion. But how different might the Premiership be?

José’s answer is that the team generally “took a while to get used to it” but, playing alongside Maya Yoshida, he seemed to find a new gear and to be able to play the game at his own pace.

The more Premier League games he got under his belt the more comfortable he looked and Premier League season got under way, he looked more comfortable than ever.

He was rewarded with a new three-year contact in Aug 2014 and made club captain and later that year won his first full cap at the age of 31. It was to get even better for him on the international stage as he was in the Portuguese team (along with Cedric Soares) that beat France in the Euro 2016 final. But then things started to go wrong with this hugely respected – by colleagues and fans alike – player’s relationship with the club for reasons that remain unclear.

Mysteriously, under the stewardship of Claude Puel, he did not feature in any of the Europa League matches during the 2016-17 campaign,

although he was almost ever present in the Premier League, alongside Virgil van Dijk which cynics put down to a reluctance to be cup-tied in case a move to a bigger European club materialised. He certainly was unsettled and it was no surprise when he departed to West Ham in the January transfer window. It was an untidy divorce to what had been an anything but an unhappy marriage with Saints, but at his age and now a European champion, a desire to harness a couple of late pay days was probably the catalyst for his unrest. He did not last long at West Ham and  he was soon signing a lucrative contract to play in China before returning to sign a two year contract with Lille. In May 2021 he captained them to the Ligue One Championship title. Not bad going for a 37-year old.