The highly-rated young midfielder is soaking up a new style of football at Wolves after leaving Porto and is enjoying the food and even Black Country weather

It is less the calm after the storm and more the sense that there was never so much as a cloud in the sky anyway. Rúben Neves exudes calm and poise, despite a dizzying introduction to top-level football as a teenager and now, at 20, a move to the second tier of English football that has wrongfooted many observers.

This has been a period of profound change for the Portugal midfielder. Having left Porto, his only club, for Wolverhampton Wanderers in July, he rushed back to the city they call Invicta straight after his Championship debut, a victory over Middlesbrough, to attend the birth of his first child, Margarida.

Neves’s new life is settling into what he describes as normality and, although he admits it is tough having his young family in Portugal, he can look forward to them moving to the Black Country after this international break. He credits the atmosphere at Wolves with making the transition easier. “I like the city,” he says. “I like the environment. It’s a calm atmosphere.”

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That suits him down to the ground, because all Neves wants to think about is football. The day-to-day adjustments some new arrivals struggle with, such as language (“I manage to speak a bit, and my team-mates keep it simple for me”), food (“pretty much the same as Portugal, because I eat at home a lot”) and weather (“I’ve always liked milder temperatures”) are matters that hardly bear acknowledgment. “I expected it to be more difficult,” he says.

When he starts talking about the game, Neves really comes alive. He has hit the ground running with Wolves, most notably with his stunning first goal in the win at Hull, and seems exhilarated by his new surroundings. “It’s a more aggressive, more physical type of football, and the big difference that I’ve noticed so far is the competitive rhythm of the game,” he says. “The first two games here were physical and fast for the whole 90 minutes. You’re running as much as you can for the whole game. That’s a huge difference with Portugal because, unfortunately, there’s a lot of time-wasting there.”

The thought that a ball player of Neves’s elegance and quality could be swamped in the harum-scarum Championship is not something he gives much credence to. “It’s quick here but wherever you play in the world, when you play at the top level, you have to make decisions quickly. So I already felt this a bit at Porto. Even if the opponents are a bit more aggressive, the aim is the same, which is to get the better of them so you can send the ball wherever it needs to go.”

The conversation often drifts back to Porto. It is natural – until just over a month ago it was all he knew as a footballer. “I was seven and a half, nearly eight when I arrived,” he says. “I was always a Porto fan, so they were 12 extremely big years for me.”

Going through some of his enviable list of teenage achievements that he must have heard a thousand times before – becoming Porto’s youngest goalscorer at 17 in 2014, eclipsing Cristiano Ronaldo as the youngest Portuguese to play in the Champions League later in the same week and then becoming the youngest captain in the competition’s history in a group match against Maccabi Tel Aviv a year later – he cannot hide his pleasure, with a proud smile stretching across his face.

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“It was an unbelievable journey, something that I’ll never forget, and being able to go back there one day is a major aim – because, for all the personal milestones, I never achieved the major one that I wanted, which was to win the league championship there. I hope to go back one day and do it.”

This is not just a player saying the right thing so as not to burn bridges. That passion stares right back – literally, in fact, with the motto “Azul e branco é a coração” – the heart is blue and white – tattooed on the inside of his upper left arm. When Neves says he is still a Porto supporter, it is an understatement.

“I’m a fanatical fan,” he says. “I watch all the games that I can. With a lot of Portuguese people here there’s always lots of opportunities to see the games. And because the games here normally kick off at 3pm and in Portugal we tend to play later, I’ve seen all the games so far. Of course, when I’m back in Portugal, I’ll go to the stadium to see the games too.”

Last season, as he struggled to make the Porto XI under Nuno Espírito Santo – now the Wolves manager – hitting a wall for the first time in his senior career, it was in the stands that he sought solace, standing with the Super Dragões fan group away at … was it Belenenses? “Estoril,” he corrects instantly, with a fan’s reflexes, moving a few stops up the Lisbon coast. “I felt a bit alone, as sometimes happens when you’re not in the team,” he says. “It’s good to connect with people and enjoy yourself and to support your team-mates, too.”

This grasp of what football fandom is about has made Neves respond immediately not only to the atmosphere of English football but especially to Molineux. “The atmosphere is incredible,” he says, smiling, wide-eyed and, just for once, looking his age. “I’ve been surprised in a very positive way. I knew the crowds here were really good from watching on television but to be in the middle of the stadium, it’s something really impressive. To feel the fans are with you is so important and it’s something we have home and away. Even when we go somewhere that’s three hours away, our part of the stand is always full and that always helps us. I hope this continues and that we carry on working as a team, all together.”

The aim is a clear one, with the club fixated on promotion to the Premier League. What has been rather less so for some observers is why such a feted talent as Neves would end up at Wolves, rather than at a more prestigious club. The influence of Jorge Mendes at Molineux concerns some but Neves sees the link as mutually advantageous and is grateful to the agent for his guidance. “It was him that gave me the opportunity to grow as a player and as a person, and I want to make the most of it,” Neves says.

He is unequivocal. “It was the right decision for my career. Like I said, I’m still a fanatical fan of Porto and I always will be but a footballer’s career is short and I have to make the most of all the opportunities that I get. I had the chance to come and play here, to get more minutes, something that wasn’t happening at Porto, and so it was a professional decision.”

His team-mates at Estádio do Dragão, he says, saw nothing unusual in him choosing Wolves. “They wished me all the luck in the world, knowing it was a real opportunity for me.”

Neves is clear, too, that for him and his peers, England’s appeal is not limited to the top bracket of Chelsea, Liverpool and the like that he was being linked with a year ago.

“Any player in the world would love to try out playing here,” he says. “To have the chance to play here, even in the Championship … it’s a league with a good visibility that’s talked about all over the world. Pretty much any player wouldn’t think twice about it.”

Neves certainly is not one to dwell on things, as his quick adaptation to life at Molineux has proved. If his ambition and sang-froid are matched by his team-mates, one would bet on Wolves getting to where they want to be.