“Do you know fado?” Diogo Dalot asks. The Portuguese right-back is running through his music tastes, specifically the tunes he used to play in his car when he’d pick up his team-mate Bruno Fernandes and drive to Manchester United’s off-the-grid training ground, Carrington. “When Bruno first arrived (from Sporting) he lived five minutes away from me,” Dalot tells The Athletic. “I’m a very good DJ. I listen to everything apart from metal. You know who’s a big fan of heavy metal? David de Gea. He puts his headphones on and if it’s quiet in the dressing room, you just hear this ‘WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH’. It’s funny. But he loves it.”
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Fado is softer and more melancholic. It evokes that quintessentially Portuguese trait of “saudade” — comparable to Proust’s involuntary memory when a sound or a taste brings everything back, a whirlwind of emotions blurring nostalgia and, often, your “aldeia” (the place you call home) to hopes for a brighter future. When Dalot returned to Old Trafford with AC Milan last week for the first leg of a Europa League tie against his parent club, the aroma of a match day at Manchester United stirred his soul and stoked some not-so-distant memories. “The stadium has a smell,” Dalot says. “The grass has a smell.”
His two years at United flashed through his mind and the experience of preparing to play as the away team was initially the cause of some cognitive dissonance. “I was used to going to the other half of the pitch before the game. It was strange just to see the stadium from that perspective because I always looked from the Stretford End to the top. But I have to say it was a very good feeling (being back).”
Dalot dribbles past Fernandes during the first leg at Old Trafford (Photo: Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images)
Leaving to start a new life in another country is an aspect of Portuguese national identity that often gets traced back to intrepid explorers like Vasco da Gama. Adapting to different surroundings seems to come easier to them regardless of the saudade captured in the lyrics of the fado songs on Dalot’s iPhone. He turns 22 today and like his new team-mate and compatriot, the rangy, slaloming striker Rafael Leao, Serie A is already the third top-flight league he’s appeared in around Europe.
From Portugal to England to Italy, Dalot’s wanderlust seems typically Portuguese. But there’s more to it than that. “It’s a funny story,” he smiles. Observant ears know Dalot doesn’t sound like a Portuguese name. It’s French. As Dalot explains, it comes “from my mother’s side but my father always used to tell me if someone asks you what your name is, tell them it’s Dalot because it’s a different name, it’s more artistic”. His dad, Antonio Teixeira, wasn’t wrong. The name Dalot has an association with the performing arts too. “It’s from four or five generations before me,” Diogo continues. “The Dalots were in a travelling circus. They were doing their show around Europe. At least I think that’s what the story is. They stopped in Portugal, in Braga, my mother’s city and stopped there. I think everything originates from there.”
The tricks must have been passed down all the way to Diogo — at least, that’s the impression you get upon seeing his first Serie A goal, which came a few days before he flew to England to face United.
.@HellasVeronaFC 🆚 @acmilan#SerieATIM Matchday 2️⃣6️⃣
Final Result: 0️⃣ – 2️⃣
Big Away win for Milan thanks to 2 beautiful goals by #Krunic and #Dalot!#WeAreCalcio pic.twitter.com/3ZTEid2yiz— Lega Serie A (@SerieA_EN) March 9, 2021
“I’d say it was the best of my career so far,” Dalot nods, and who is going to argue with that? Driving inside from the left, the goal in Verona had stepovers and a no-look finish flying into the top corner. “What a goal you’ve gone and scored,” Fernandes messaged him in Italian. Dalot was delighted to open his account in Italy. “I’m not going to be happy if I finish a season without goals,” he explains. “I’m a defender and I need to defend well but a big part of my game is to be in the final third helping the team with goals and assists. It’s a characteristic of mine since I was young and I got a taste for it especially at the Under-17 Euros.”
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That’s where Dalot first appeared on the radar of the continent’s big clubs. He was an integral part of the Portugal side that won the tournament in Azerbaijan in 2016, scoring in the semi-final against Holland and the final against Spain, where he prevailed over his new Milan team-mate Brahim Diaz. “I remember us watching videos of Brahim when he was at City,” Dalot says. “Unbelievable. He was the superstar. Left foot, right foot, we didn’t know which foot he was going to use. We had some difficult times during the game because he can cause you problems at any minute and this little guy, 1.68m, scores a header. I mean, I almost cleared it off the line but it was already in.” That goal cancelled out Dalot’s opener and the final ended up going to a shootout. Dalot converted his spot kick and Portugal became champions.
Dalot, centre bottom row, with the trophy after Portugal beat Spain in the 2016 Under-17 European Championship final (Photo: Tofik Babayev/AFP via Getty Images)
“We had a strong team,” he recalls. “And we were probably the favourites.” The core, particularly at the back, was made in Porto. “Most of them are Diogos as well, did you notice?” Dalot says. “One time, we had the whole defence with just Diogos in it because there was a left-back, he was playing for Porto’s second team, Diogo Bessa, so we had Diogo Costa (the goalkeeper), Diogo Dalot, Diogo Queiros, Diogo Leite and Diogo Bessa. They call us the Diogo generation.” And they put the “D” in Portugal’s defence.
Coming up through the ranks at Porto, where he played and went to school with Atletico Madrid’s Joao Felix for eight years, was a source of immense pride for the Dalot family. His father’s ambition was to become a footballer. “My grandmother didn’t let him, though, he had to study,” Dalot says. “It was a different era. As soon as he had a kid, I think he had this dream to be in the football world with me. He made a very big effort to make it possible.”
Antonio Teixeira is also a Porto fanatic. “He wouldn’t allow anyone to be anything other than a Porto fan in the house so I’ve been a Porto fan ever since I can remember. Even before I played for them, I went to the Dragao lots of times to watch games. Can you imagine what it was like for a little kid who was a Porto fan playing for his hometown club?”
Can you imagine how well last week’s win over Juventus in the Champions League went down in the Dalot household, too? “I didn’t celebrate a Porto victory like that for a long time,” he says. “It was something amazing. I was here with my girlfriend. My mother was celebrating. It was fantastic the way that they won. I just feel a little bit sad for the fans because they weren’t in the stadium.”
(Photo: Ana Luisa Silva/StudiumCreative)
Pepe’s performance in defence, at the age of 38, left Dalot in awe. “He’s from another world. There are a few players who get to that age and keep going another three or five years. It’s something that comes from inside of them. They don’t want to stop. They don’t want to not be successful. There are times at Milan when I see Zlatan and I ask myself, how is it possible that a 39-year-old guy has the same hunger as someone who’s 20 or 21? He’s won everything. He’s done everything. It amazes me. If a guy is 39 and he’s doing this every single day, why can’t I?”
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Dalot thought he’d missed his chance to train with Ibrahimovic when the Swede left for LA Galaxy in the same summer he made his €22 million move to Manchester United from Porto. “It was a bit like, ‘Awwww, I wish I just knew Zlatan because every time you see stories about him everyone wants to meet Zlatan.’ He’s probably one of the best players ever and you want to play with the best.”
The player who has surprised Dalot most since moving to Milan though is Ismael Bennacer. “A hundred per cent,” he says. “I didn’t know he was so good. I knew there was a good player but for a small guy to have that quality on the ball and the aggression and intensity that he has, that came as the biggest surprise.”
Getting to grips with another football culture has been enjoyable to Dalot and Fernandes’ experience at Novara, Udinese and Sampdoria was something he wanted to tap into when he made the switch from Stretford to San Siro. “Before I came we spoke a lot about Italian football,” he explains. “Bruno loved to be here. He spoke very well about how they play and it was a big push for me when I told him I could come to Milan and he said what a fantastic club it is historically speaking.”
(Photo: Emilio Andreoli/Getty Images)
This season Dalot has split time between playing left and right-back for Milan. What the coach Stefano Pioli wants from those positions is very different, with Theo Hernandez driving right at the heart of defences from the left and Davide Calabria playing a little more conservative, often tucking in on the other side. It’s nothing Dalot can’t handle.
“Especially in my last year at Porto, I began playing on the left because we had a couple of right-backs and no fit left-backs. I felt comfortable. I won’t say I’m amazing with my left foot but I’m OK because my dad always told me to play with my left foot. Tactically it’s different, the perception you have of the pitch is completely different. To give you an example, if the ball is on the other side, you have to come into the middle and your body shape needs to be one way but on the other side you need to be the other way.” It requires coordination and a little time to rewire your instincts but Dalot says: “I absolutely love to do it because I want to be on the pitch playing.”
His loan to Milan, which does not include an option to buy, has also made Dalot play the game more in his head too. “In the Premier League, we need to have pace and intensity and you have a little more space and freedom tactically. In Italy, we have to think a little bit more, it’s more man-to-man, so the challenges will always be against one opponent. It’s the smell you get for a game, the tactical part of the game. It’s more like a chess match and that’s been amazing to be a part of and understand as well.”
United are the ones currently in check though, after Simon Kjaer’s late and deserved away goal in the 1-1 draw at Old Trafford last week. “I left something good there,” Dalot says, with regards to United. “I’m talking about the relationships I have with people. The proof is after seven or eight months we still have the connection and that’s a very good feeling for me.”
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Dalot would have preferred to meet United in the final, of course. But rather than pick up Fernandes and go together, there’s only room for one of them on the way to Gdansk. “It’s been a fantastic journey so far,” Dalot smiles.
Hopefully, the metal at the end of it comes in the form of a trophy rather than the music ringing out of De Gea’s headphones.
(Photos: Getty Images/Design: Sam Richardson)
