Can Helder Costa Find a Voice in Valencia?

One of the best goals by a Leeds United player last season was scored by Helder Costa for the Under-23s.

Tyler Roberts had equalised with ten minutes left, against West Brom at Thorp Arch on a dank November day, but Costa wasn’t leaving the score at 1-1. Five minutes later he took a pass from Struijk and, seeing a gap, drove on a curve between surprised opponents, into the penalty area. Faced up by a defender, the magic began. Costa span him by tempting him with the ball but veering suddenly inside with it sticking to his toe, put another defender on the floor by popping the ball from instep to instep, then as momentum sent him sliding he struck a firm shot into the far corner before falling to the ground, face down, presumably smiling into the turf but nobody could see that.

It’s not very different to the close control he used while scoring for Wolves against Cardiff in 2017, one of the few times I’ve seen a bodyswerve send a defender and a goalkeeper off in search of the same hot dog at the same time, opening up a huge open goal where Allan McGregor should have been. In a video Q&A on Wolves’ YouTube channel nine months later, Costa confidently declares that one the greatest goal he’s ever seen, by anyone, even after Ruben Neves and Diogo Jota, when they’ve finished laughing, have put a word in for Roberto Carlos’ swerving free-kick for Brazil against France in 1997. “Ever?” insists Jota. Costa just looks at them, shrugging, laughing. Yes, the best goal ever.

Those are two very different sides to the Helder Costa we saw around the first team at Leeds, even though they answer some of the basic questions that have haunted him here. Is he any good? He’s capable of great goals, sure. Does he lack confidence? Apparently not at Wolves! Does he even speak English? Yes, and very well, as in his post-promotion interview at Wolves, arm in arm with Barry Douglas. “Now the hard part will start next year, so we’ve got to prepare ourselves for that. So let’s enjoy now!” he says, raising a big bottle of champagne and bursting into song with a massive grin on his face. “We’re going up!”

What happened to this happy, confident Helder Costa, scorer of mesmerising goals? Some at Wolves date a change to an ankle operation before the start of that promotion season, when Costa was 23, and the simultaneous arrival of Nuno Santo as manager. They say he was never as explosive again, although he still managed five goals — including the Cardiff magic — and six assists in their promotion season. His goals plus assists stats held up, 0.52 per 90 in the season before his summer surgery, 0.51 per 90 the season after. Contrary to faulty memories about Wolves ditching him at that point, Costa didn’t follow Barry Douglas straight to Leeds after promotion, but started sixteen games for them in the Premier League, getting a goal and a couple of assists.

Leeds is where the mystery begins. He started more games in our promotion than in any season of his life before, but the direct contributions almost halved from Wolves, to 0.27 per 90. But he reversed that in the Premier League. In 25 top-flight appearances for Wolves his goals plus assists number was 0.20 per 90; in 22 games for Leeds he got that up to 0.47. Of players with minutes in the same ballpark last season, he rated better than Said Benrahma, Kai Havertz, Hakim Ziyech, Emile Smith Rowe.

Stats, though. Sample size rears its small head here so we go instead to the bottom line and find three goals and three assists. And two of each were before the end of October, and the beginning of Raphinha. In the opening couple of weeks, when he scored a brace against Fulham, it looked like we were going to be seeing a different Helder Costa in the Premier League. But Stade Rennais’ bizarre desire to deprive themselves of Raphinha meant Costa spent most of the season on the bench, watching him, coming on from time to time for increasingly beleaguered cameos. He couldn’t do what Raphinha was doing, and that seemed to freeze him into doing nothing at all, unable to spring back into life from being the half-Costa of Leeds’ Championship, compared to the full whack of Wolves’. There was a sort of fog about Costa, until he popped up in the background of videos from the team bus, the title celebration in empty Elland Road, the end of 2020/21 lap of honour, or on the video feed from the end of season awards. In those appearances he seemed at least content and sometimes almost giddy. I got used to seeing Costa smiling most in his scruffs, happiest in his own clothes, like a different person compared to the misery his face was describing at work, on the pitch.

“Helder’s a bubbly guy,” Barry Douglas said a few months after Costa came to Leeds. “He likes to have a laugh, joke around and stuff. He’s quite a laid-back character, doesn’t really take anything too seriously, which is always nice. He’s always got a smile on his face.” We needed Barry to tell us, because Costa didn’t do any interviews like the ones at Wolves, was never seen on LUTV again after his unveiling video. He never crafted his own story the way Raphinha did, last week, in the Players Tribune. Did he become shy outside Wolverhampton? Did the pandemic silence some big scheduled interviews? Was he never asked to break the Kalvin, Liam, Luke, Pat and Stuey cycle in the club’s media? It might have been easier for fans to find empathy for his on-field woe, if it was balanced by some off-field insight into who, exactly, we were looking at. Let him have a go on the club podcast! For Costa to come and go and leave fans wondering if he even spoke English seems like a missed opportunity to enjoy the personality of a bubbly, laid-back character who’ll deadpan tell you he scored the best goal ever by anyone, even while we weren’t enjoying his play. He seemed able to relax away from the pressure of the games, vital compartmenting if the Premier League isn’t to drag you under, and maybe we could have chilled with him.

Maybe Helder Costa will find his voice in Valencia. He needs to find his feet first, though, and in the end they’re always more important for a footballer. You’d never hear a word against his contribution from Marcelo Bielsa in public; it was always the fans who had doubts at Leeds. But reports in Spain say his new coach, José Bordalás, had to be persuaded to take him on loan, and if that affects the first impressions he makes on the fans, I hope he’s given the chance to make another. ◉