BRIGHTON provided a handy platform on which João Teixeira could parade his undoubted talent but he was unable subsequently to nail down a regular starting spot with parent club Liverpool.
The young Portuguese midfielder impressed sufficiently on loan to the Seagulls in 2014-15 to earn the club’s Young Player of the Season award.
His time at Brighton was certainly a whole lot more successful than a loan move made to League One Brentford the previous season: a six-month arrangement was cut short in October after only two substitute appearances because the Bees couldn’t guarantee him the game time Liverpool had been expecting him to get.
It was a different story with the Seagulls although it was a shame his efforts were overshadowed by the side’s struggle to stay in the Championship and it ended prematurely for him when he suffered a broken leg.
On his return to fitness back at Liverpool, he was a frequent first team benchwarmer under Jurgen Klopp but chose to move back home to Portugal to seek regular playing time.
Liverpool paid Sporting Lisbon £830,000 in the January 2012 transfer window to take Teixeira to Anfield and it was Brendan Rodgers who gave him his Reds debut on 12 February 2014 when he was sent on as a substitute for Raheem Sterling in a 3-2 win at Fulham.
Captain Steven Gerrard told the Liverpool website at the time: “I watched this kid a couple of years ago playing for Sporting Lisbon against Liverpool at Anfield in a youth game; I could see straight away he was the best player on the pitch.
“Credit to him, he has kept working hard. He has been invited to train with the first team. He is competing, he is trying to improve and learn. He listens – I’ve just been speaking to him in the dressing room and you can see he wants to learn and listen.
“He has got respect for the other players in the dressing room. This is the start for him now; I’ve just told him that he needs to push on, keep learning and building on what he has just achieved. He deserved his debut and he made a special tackle which helped us get over the line.”
As it turned out, his next senior action came in Brighton’s Championship visit to St Andrew’s six months later when he went on as a 64th minute substitute for Kazenga LuaLua in a 1-0 defeat.
Brighton’s newly-appointed head coach, Sami Hyypiä, had returned to his old club to clinch Teixeira’s signature on a season-long loan and he told the matchday programme: “My former colleagues at Liverpool have told me he is a very bright young prospect who is held in high regard at the club at all levels.
“João is an attacking player who likes to be on the ball and do his best work in the final third of the pitch. I hope he will bring that extra edge to the team and our play – and give us an extra dimension.”
No sooner said than done because when given a starting spot three days after the Birmingham defeat, he made an immediate impact by putting Brighton ahead in the fifth minute at Elland Road and Albion went on to beat Leeds 2-0, handing Hyypiä his first win.
The boss told Sky Sports: “I am grateful to them for letting João come to us and get the games he needs, but it works both ways. They can benefit too because his time with us can hopefully be a stepping stone towards Liverpool’s first team.
“He is a young player and Liverpool have a very big squad. A player of his age needs to play games to improve. We have a quality player and I am very happy to have him with us.”
The instant impact earned Teixeira the fans vote for performance of the month which gave the player the chance to take a 48-hour demonstration drive in a Porsche.
The Portuguese youngster was on the scoresheet again on his home debut for Brighton, netting the winner against Bolton in the 64th minute after Craig Mackail-Smith had cancelled out the visitors’ lead shortly before half-time.
Teixeira seized on a pass from debut-making left-back Joe Bennett to score through the legs of goalkeeper Andy Lonergan, on as a sub for Adam Bogdan, who’d been injured in a collision with Mackail-Smith.
If it looked like a corner had been turned after the season had begun with two defeats, sadly the opposite was the case and Albion went on an 11-game winless run with the players at Hyypia’s disposal seemingly baffled by how he wanted them to play.
After he and the club parted ways, and Chris Hughton begun the task of ensuring the Albion didn’t lose their Championship status, Teixeira got back on the goal trail.
He twice scored braces (in a 3-2 home win over Ipswich on 21 January and a 4-3 home win over Birmingham on 21 February).
It said it all about Albion’s close shave with relegation that his six goals in 35 games (28 starts + seven as sub) for the Seagulls made him second top scorer behind centre back Lewis Dunk’s seven that season.
Sadly, a leg break in a home game against Huddersfield Town on 14 April brought his season, and Albion career, to a premature end. Teixeira was stretchered off after a challenge by Nahki Wells that resulted in a fracture just above the ankle.
“This is a real blow to him after such a good season for the club – and we all wish him a speedy recovery and return to action,” said Hughton.
“He’s been an important player for the club this season, both before and after I came to the club, and I would like to thank him for his efforts during his time on loan here, and also Liverpool for allowing him to come.”
The player had talked of his dream to return to Liverpool and to break into the first-team.
“I came to Brighton to become more mature and get more experience, and hopefully next year I will be playing for Liverpool. That is my dream,” he told The Guardian.
He was included in the 30-man squad that went on a four-game pre-season tour in Asia and after Rodgers was sacked he was named as a non-playing sub in the 18-man squad for Klopp’s first game in charge in October 2015 (a 0-0 draw at Tottenham, when James Milner and Adam Lallana were starters).
He did start a League Cup game against Bournemouth, which was won 1-0, and he went on to make five cup appearances for Liverpool in 2015-16. He appeared only once as a sub in the Premier League and scored his only goal for the club in a 3-0 FA Cup third round win over Exeter City.
“I like João. As a person, as a footballer,” Klopp said after that game. “But of course, players like him need matches, and if you can’t get it then you have to leave.”
And that’s what he did. Although he was offered a new contract by the Reds, at the age of 23 he chose to move back to Portugal in search of regular first team football and signed for his boyhood team, Porto.
“I am from the north [of Portugal] and to wear blue and white has always been a dream for me,” he said.
“Now I can work at my club in my region and my country. I had other offers but do not want anything other than to wear blue and white.”
Born in Braga, Portugal, on 18 January 1993, Teixeira first caught the eye with his hometown club, before being snapped up by Sporting Lisbon where he continued to make progress through its youth teams. He also represented Portugal from under-16 through to under-21 level.
It was while playing for Sporting in the NextGen Series, the under-19 tournament for academy teams of Europe’s top clubs, that he played against Liverpool and caught the eye of Liverpool’s academy director, Frank McParland.
On arrival at Anfield, he was part of the under-21 set up and made 20 appearances in the inaugural Barclays Under-21 Premier League.
“I was 18, it’s hard to say no to Liverpool, it was a unique opportunity. I went and I don’t regret it,” Teixeira reflected in an interview with Portuguese sports newspaper A Bola.
“I had wonderful experiences, I played with great players, things were happening. I don’t regret going. I still played eight games, seven of them under Klopp.”
But the return home in 2016 didn’t work out for him, and after making only eight appearances for Porto during the 2016-17 season, Teixeira returned to his first club, Braga, on a season-long loan.
It was something of a surprise when in July 2018 he joined Braga’s local rivals Vitoria Guimaraes on a three-year deal, scoring 10 times in 53 appearances across two seasons.
In September 2020, he signed a two-year contract with Eredivisie Feyenoord, telling the club’s in-house channel: “I’m very happy to be here. It’s a beautiful chance for me and I’m very excited to start training and helping the team.
“Why Feyenoord? It’s a great club with a great history. I spoke with a few people in Portugal that played here and they told me the same thing: they have the greatest fans in Holland, and I’m happy to join.”
Describing himself, Teixeira said: “I’m an attacking midfielder. I like to score, I like to assist and that’s what I’ll try to do. But the main thing is to help the team.”
That help tended to be mainly from the bench, and suffering a broken foot didn’t help either, so in the second half of the 2021-22 season he returned to Portugal again to play for FC Famalicão.
When Liverpool discovered in the spring of 2024 that Feyenoord boss Arne Slot would be taking over from Klopp, Teixeira was interviewed by Reds’ fans channel The Redmen TV about what they might expect from the incoming head coach.
By then, Teixeira had already made two other moves: in June 2022, he’d moved to Qatar to play for Umm Salal where he scored five goals in 22 appearances. And 10 months later he switched to Chinese Super League side Shanghai Shenhua. The player posts his achievements at the club to 197,000 followers on Instagram.
His performances earned him the Young Player of the Year accolade even though his season was cut short by injury.
The Portuguese youngster scored again four days later, 
Captain Steven Gerrard 
The following season, Meade scored a hat-trick in the 3-1 win over Watford, which began Don Howe’s tenure as Arsenal manager, and he also earned a special place in Gunners’ fans hearts when scoring twice (pictured celebrating above with Charlie Nicholas, who also got two) in Arsenal’s 4-2 victory over arch-rivals Spurs on Boxing Day 1983.
But after only four games for the Hatters he was on his way again, this time to Odense BK in Denmark.
In parallel lines 