“LOSING TO GREECE IN THE EURO 2004 FINAL WAS HARD – WE KEPT TRYING, BUT THE BALL JUST WOULDN’T GO IN”

Everyone knows you as Nuno Gomes, but your name is Nuno Miguel Soares Pereira Ribeiro. Where did the Gomes come from?

When I was a kid, Fernando Gomes was often the top scorer in Portugal. With my long hair, I looked a bit like him. When I started to play for local side Amarante, I was the top scorer and my coach liked Fernando Gomes, so after a while he started to call me Nuno Gomes. To be called Gomes was fine by me. I tried to change it once, at Boavista, but the president didn’t want to. He said, “All the people know you as Nuno Gomes, so they’ll get confused. We’re getting a lot