A high-class central midfielder with excellent organisational and distribution skills, João Moutinho has revived his international career under former Sporting Clube de Portugal boss Paulo Bento having been overlooked for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. He won a treble in his debut season with FC Porto and retained the Liga title in 2012.

• Born in the Algarve, Moutinho made his debut for Sporting in January 2005 and did enough in his first few months to earn a place in the team which lost 3-1 to PFC CSKA Moskva in the UEFA Cup final on home turf at the Estádio José Alvalade.

• Ever-present in the 2005/06 league campaign, scoring four goals in his 34 appearances, and became the club's second youngest captain when appointed to the position by Bento in 2007.

• Experienced a marathon 2007/08 campaign (62 matches), which ended with him lifting the Portuguese Cup after an extra-time win against champions Porto in the final (2-0).

• Omitted from Portugal's 2006 FIFA World Cup squad, he played instead at the UEFA European Under-21 Championship, where he scored a winner against Germany in the group stage; was also on duty at the 2007 U21 Championship and UEFA EURO 2008, where he was a regular in midfield until he left the field early with an injury in a quarter-final defeat by Germany.

• Overlooked once again for the World Cup finals, he made a shock move to domestic rivals Porto in summer 2010, having played 163 Liga games for Sporting and scored 21 goals.

• Helped Porto to a runaway Liga success in 2010/11 as the Dragons wrapped up the title with five matches to spare, and was also ever-present in the club's UEFA Europa League triumph.

UEFA honours
UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League: runner-up 2005, winner 2011