Feeling At Home

Andre Gomes talks to Everton’s matchday programme about feeling at home in England, falling in love with Evertonians, trying to live up to the Club’s proud motto and a recent late-night dash to USM Finch Farm.

- Paul McNamara

Andre Gomes in full flight is a juggernaut of a footballer. He glides across the ground as if operating on cruise control, passes off both feet with authority and precision and oozes elegance.

Gomes was playing against Newcastle United last season when the northeast club’s former midfielder Lee Clark, quietly watching from Goodison Park’s media seats, suddenly passed judgment on the Portuguese.

“That Gomes is some player, he’d improve any Premier League team,” said Clark to nobody in particular but compelled to air his view.

It takes a special talent to have that startling effect on observers, even more so now the proliferation of televised football sees games from across the planet pumped out of our screens daily.

When he is flushed with confidence and his body plays ball, Gomes possesses a rare wow factor, a panache that makes him stand out from the crowd. “When you are confident, you do your thing,” says Gomes. “You play in automatic gear. “You don’t think too much, you just play. You enjoy it more.

“But whether you are at the top or bottom of your confidence – you have to keep a balance during the games and during the season, which is hard.

“When you are feeling that confidence, you can do whatever you want, in a good way.”

Clark reached his conclusion within 25 minutes of seeing Gomes in action. The Englishman’s addendum concerning Gomes’s capacity to enrich any side in the league was relevant because the player was at Everton on temporary terms.

That meeting with Newcastle was only Gomes’s seventh match for the Club but already the grapevine was humming with whispers about his long-term destination.

He ultimately opted to join this summer’s Goodison influx and Director of Football Marcel Brands admitted persuading Gomes to come from Barcelona was a cakewalk.