Diogo Costa: The Rising Star of Portuguese Goalkeeping
This summer, we are running a series profiling 50 exciting players under the age of 25 — who they are, how they play, and why they are attracting interest during this transfer window. You can find all our profiles so far here, including “the Gen-Z Sergio Busquets”, the Canada striker determined to become a household name and the French midfielder that can do it all.
4 October 2022. Porto vs Bayer Leverkusen. Diogo Costa springs to his left and claws the ball away. Patrick Schick is stricken.
12 October 2022. Bayer Leverkusen vs Porto. Action replay: same side, same height, same hand. Kerem Demirbay looks like he has seen a ghost.
26 October 2022. Club Bruges vs Porto. Costa gets down low to his right to thwart Hans Vanaken. This time, though, there is a slight issue: he strayed off his line before the ball was kicked.
Noa Lang assumes responsibility for the retake. Costa takes a deep breath, steadies himself. He couldn’t, could he?
He does. The 23-year-old plunges to his left, extending his right hand skyward. The ball slams into his wrist. Porto clear the danger. Costa and his defenders explode into animal ecstasy.
Some goalkeepers do not save three penalties in their entire careers. Costa saved three — four, if we’re counting Vanaken’s — in the space of 22 days. On three consecutive matchdays. In the Champions League. Talk about announcing yourself on the biggest stage.
There is, though, much more to Costa than mere penalty-saving prowess. He is widely regarded as one of the most rounded young goalkeepers in world football, and those who know him say he has the mentality to match his talent.
At Porto, he has long been viewed as a future superstar, courtesy of a decade’s worth of excellence at youth level. Iker Casillas earmarked him as his long-term successor as far back as 2018; five years on, Costa is undisputed first choice — for his club and for Portugal’s national team.
“He’s the most impressive Portuguese goalkeeper since Vitor Baia,” says Pedro Cunha, the editor of the ZeroZero website and a long-time follower of Porto.
“He will be one of the best in the world very soon.”
Costa made his senior debut in 2019 but really came to the fore in 2021-22 when he was brought into the Porto side to stand in for the injured Agustin Marchesin.
He seized his opportunity, putting in a series of convincing displays as Sergio Conceicao’s side romped to the league title. By the end of the campaign, he had kept 15 clean sheets and been elected the goalkeeper of the season.
Costa was similarly impressive in 2022-23. His saves were the difference between the 15 non-penalty goals Porto conceded in the league and the 21.7 that Opta’s xG data suggests they should have conceded:
It was a similar tale in the Champions League: according to Fbref data, Costa prevented 0.46 goals per 90 minutes, putting him in the top 15 per cent of goalkeepers in the competition in that metric. He also saved 81.6 per cent of the shots he faced. Caveats apply here — eight matches is quite a small sample size and Porto’s defence was broadly solid, meaning opponents had relatively few big chances — but these numbers do hint at his quality.
There is also an intangible assurance about him. He makes saves, sure, but he also just seems to be in charge of every situation. Not all young goalkeepers exude an overwhelming sense of security, but Costa does. ”He already plays like a goalkeeper who has 15 years of Champions League experience behind him,” says Cunha.
Pedro Pereira, a goalkeeping coach who worked with Costa in Porto’s youth system and B team between 2011 and 2021, echoes that view.
“Diogo is a very calm goalkeeper, one with real presence,” Pereira tells The Athletic. “He has clarity in key moments and controls his emotions very well. He exudes security in everything he does and that transmits a sense of serenity to the team.”
There have been occasional lapses — witness the costly misjudgment that led to the only goal of the game in Portugal’s World Cup defeat to Morocco — but Pereira is convinced of the quality of his all-round game.
“He is a very complete goalkeeper,” he says. “Diogo is capable of making match-winning saves, he’s really strong under the high ball and can play under pressure.
“He is also very comfortable with the ball at his feet. That is one of his strengths. He strikes the ball with power and precision, so he is able to play to any part of the pitch.”
Case in point: his assist for Wenderson Galeno in the 3-0 victory against Leverkusen in Germany.
Costa receives a pass from David Carmo, Porto’s left-sided centre-back. Two Leverkusen forwards begin to close in…
But Costa is unruffled, taking a couple of touches as he looks up, scanning for passing options:
Seeing Galeno make a run forward, Costa pings a pass out to the left flank. The trajectory is perfect, low and hard:
The pass takes Leverkusen right-back Odilon Kossounou out of the equation and allows Galeno to sprint into space:
With Leverkusen stretched by the speed of the attack, Galeno is able to dart inside towards the penalty area:
Galeno cuts inside two desperate defenders and finishes at the near post. The goal gives Porto a sixth-minute lead — and the perfect foundation for a memorable away win.
This is the only assist of Costa’s career so far, but it is unlikely to be his last. Against Vitoria Guimaraes, for instance, he hit what was arguably an even better pass.
After a corner comes to nothing, the ball comes back into the Porto half, where Costa is stationed just outside his penalty box. He can see one of his teammates eyeing up a run in behind on the right flank:
Costa acts quickly, taking one touch and — without any run-up — clips the ball over the entire Vitoria back line:
The pass is perfect, giving Mehdi Taremi a free run to the edge of the opposition penalty area. Only the striker’s poor touch saves the Vitoria defence:
This, of course, is not to say that Costa launches one of these laser-guided missiles every time he gets the ball. But the accuracy evident in these two instances is instructive, not least because Costa does tend to play long a fair amount. In the Champions League last season, 36 per cent of his passes were what Fbref classifies as ‘launched’ (i.e. over 40 metres in length), which puts him in the 80th percentile for that statistic. In fact, his average pass length in the competition was 36.1 metres — further than all but four of his peers.
This stylistic point may have as much to do with Porto as it does Costa. But Pereira characterizes him as a player who can pick the right option and trust his technique in a variety of situations. “He has a good touch and he is also two-footed,” he says. “He’s comfortable finding solutions whether the ball is on his right or left, even under pressure.”
Was there anything, then, that didn’t come naturally to Costa during his rise?
“The thing that improved most was his ability in one-on-one situations,” says Pereira. “He became freer in his movements, which meant he could use different parts of his body to deal with those moments. He also worked on the speed of his decision-making under maximum pressure.”
Casillas saw that progress firsthand when he was at Porto. “There is a star coming through,” he said in 2018 when asked who should replace him when he retired. “He’s called Diogo Costa. I think he’s going to be a superb goalkeeper.”
Today, that prediction has been borne out. Costa is still young but has already outgrown the usual platitudes about potential.
“He will achieve a lot in his career,” says Pereira. “For me, he is already one of the best goalkeepers out there.”