Ever since his arrival in the Sporting Lisbon first team in the 2004/05 season, there has been a quiet expectation that Joao Moutinho would become one of the world’s top midfielders. The 21 year old midfielder has recently broken in to the Portugal national team and is widely tipped to be one of the players of Euro 2008.

Moutinho is a versatile midfielder who is capable of playing a defensive holding role and also supports the forward play. He is similar in playing style to Rui Costa and is able to demonstrate great energy and style in the midfield. As all top Portuguese midfielder are, Moutinho is technically sound and also has the ability to score from long distance.

Moutinho was first noticed after he broke into the Sporting Lisbon team at the age of 17. In his first full season in the first team he helped Sporting to the final of the UEFA Cup. In the 2005/06 he fully established himself in the team helping them to secure the runners up position in the Portuguese League and a Champions League place.

The Sporting team was at this time was able to demonstrate a lot of promising talent as Moutinho was joined by other young players such as Miguel Veloso and Nani in the first team.

By the start of the 2007/08 Moutinho had become the one of the youngest players to captain Sporting.

Moutinho made his international debut at the age of 18 against Egypt in a 2-0 victory. Since 2006 he has been a regular in the team and recently grabbed his first international goal in the pre - Euro 2008 warm up match against Georgia.

There is a lot of excitement surrounding Moutinho and his participation in this summer’s Euro 2008 tournament is sure to help him to further enhance his reputation. There is no doubt that he will at some point move to a top European club and if he helps Portugal to glory then it may happen sooner rather than later.