Jota was born in Lisbon on 30 March 1999 (age 27) and came through Benfica before his career properly opened out away from Portugal. A left winger by trade, he had already had loan football by the time Celtic took him from Benfica in August 2021, a move that gave him the platform his talent needed.
At Celtic, he quickly became more than a tidy wide player with a nice touch. His most productive league season came in 2022-23, when he scored 11 goals in 33 appearances, and across his Celtic spells he won three Premiership titles, a Scottish Cup and two League Cups. There was end product, but also personality in his game – useful in Glasgow, where prettiness without substance tends to get found out.
Celtic sold him to Al-Ittihad in July 2023 for around £25m, a fee that made sense even if the move never looked especially natural from the outside. After Al-Ittihad he had a spell with Rennes, before a return to Celtic brought him back to a setting that suited him far better.
His market value is around £4.5m, according to Transfermarkt. Jota’s career has not been a straight line, but his best football has come at Celtic, where his wide play, goals and medals gave him a clear place in the club’s recent story.
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