Andreia Jacinto is a young woman of superstitions.
There is the hair — those long, brown tussles untamed behind a dark headband — and the socks, which are slipped on the same way every time (right foot first), and her position in the pre-match warm-up circle (second-left of the physio).
There are times the Real Sociedad midfielder considers changing her routine. But those moments are fleeting.
“I get nervous,” the 22-year-old Portugal international tells The Athletic. “If I change and something goes a bit different, I’m like, ‘No, no, it can’t be!’
“Maybe, also, it’s kind of an excuse not to change. Like, I started with the headband now, right? I feel that if I change too much, I’m changing my personality as a player. And I don’t want that. It’s like, ‘I started with this. I’m going with this ’til the end’.”
On Friday, Jacinto will be at London’s Wembley Stadium as Portugal take on reigning European champions England in a Nations League group-stage game.
Jacinto’s talent was clear for all to see during the reverse fixture in February. A second-half substitute along with Barcelona forward Kika Nazareth and Sporting CP striker Ana Capeta, she played a crucial role as Portugal wrestled control from England and secured a 1-1 draw.
Ahead of the European Championship finals in July, Jacinto represents for many Portugal fans their route through the group phase, where they will play Belgium, world champions Spain and Italy. Such a feat would be a first since the nation made its Euros debut in 2017.
“I really felt that we could beat England if we kept pushing. But also in that game, we didn’t feel the pressure at all about playing England,” Jacinto says. “We were just enjoying football, playing off each other, combining. I feel we brought that bit of happiness and freedom in our play, and it made a bit of a difference in the game.”
Excitement around Portugal ahead of the Euros built after that draw with the continent’s current champions. Since, expectations have tempered, particularly after the season-ending ankle injury to Nazareth in March that is expected to keep her out of the finals. Jacinto will now carry the pressure as Portugal’s young starlet, a responsibility she embraces, having been forced to miss Euro 2022 with a hernia.
Jacinto is speaking to The Athletic over FaceTime from her apartment on a grey afternoon in San Sebastian, northern Spain — Real Sociedad’s home.
“The city is small, so kids recognise me and my team-mates when we’re walking on the beach,” she says. “It’s so cute but, for me, sometimes it’s hard. I get shier than the kids. Because I can still see myself as the kid that I was, just playing football for fun, not this version of life.”
This season, Jacinto has been one of the most consistent creative forces in Liga F, Spain’s women’s top flight, despite playing for a club that finished seventh in the 16-team table, 43 points behind leaders Barcelona. At the time of our interview in April, Jacinto was nearing the end of her three-year contract, which meant heads were turning and moves away being considered, but she has since signed a one-year extension.
The midfielder swapped her girlhood club, Sporting in Portugal’s capital Lisbon, for that northeast corner of Spain in 2022 and adjusting to her new life was not easy. Sporting was the club of her roots, from the days of capering after her older brother, Leandro, on the pitches of her hometown Cascais, just a 40-minute drive west from Lisbon, and captaining the local boys’ team, to wearing the Sporting colours herself at 14 and signing her first professional contract there at 17.
That her father does not fly made the move all the harder. Family visits to San Sebastian demand nine-hour journeys. “We have the Euros in Switzerland,” she says, smiling. “He said he’s going to drive there. I looked… it’s 19 hours!”
Jacinto during the 2023 Women’s World Cup match between Portugal and Vietnam (Phil Walter/Getty Images)
Ultimately, her decision to move was made in the same way she makes passes: prompt and without hesitation.
“When I was a kid, I always said to my parents that I’d like to play abroad, (that) when I turned 18, I’d go,” Jacinto says.
“They never believed me. But then came the point that I was ending the contract with Sporting, and while we had won two titles that season, Real Sociedad finished second (in Liga F in 2021-22). They were going to play Champions League. And Spain is a championship that I like, and I identify with the profile of player (in it). As a kid, I always had that in my mind. So my decision took 20 minutes.”
Three years later, another decision awaited — ultimately, choosing to remain in Spain for another 12 months to continue honing her playing style.
“Technically, players from Portugal and Spain are not much different. But here (in Spain), you receive the pressure way, way faster and you have to act way faster and decide,” she says.
According to fbref.com, Jacinto finished in the top 10 of Liga F this season for progressive passes (third with 238), key passes (joint eighth with 49), passes into the final third (fifth with 221) and passes into the penalty area (seventh with 43). That Real Sociedad only scored 40 goals and struggled to execute in the final third is seen as more evidence of her promise.
Jacinto does not hesitate in listing out her areas with room for improvement: being more aggressive in defence, winning more aerial duels, becoming less reliant on her right foot, honing those long, raking passes with her left. But she is also just as clear about her strengths: her vision on the ball, the calm with which she picks a simple pass as seamlessly as a challenging one, the way matches move through her, her eyes forever scanning for an opening.
Tatiana Pinto and Jacinto celebrate Portugal beating Belgium in February (Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images)
Fluent in Spanish and English as well as her native Portuguese, she is also returning to studying, having had to shelve her pursuit of physiotherapy upon her move to La Real.
“There was a time not long ago when I spent a lot of time on my phone. I was like, ‘OK, no, I’m wasting my time. Instead of being on TikTok, I should read a book’. Maybe it’s weird to say, but I miss studying,” she says.
At this admission, Jacinto offers a grin not unlike the one given after admitting she’ll probably stick by her superstitions, however many times her mum asks why she doesn’t consider a ponytail.
There’s value in knowing what makes her, her.
(Top photo: Octavio Passos/Getty Images)
