Frederico Venancio was back on English soil on Thursday, around 18 months since he left Sheffield Wednesday.
The former Owls loanee captained his new club, Vitoria de Guimaraes, in their 3-2 Europa League defeat to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.
And if it wasn’t for a couple of Nicolas Pepe free-kicks dragging Arsenal out of jail in the closing stages, Venancio’s side would have recorded a famous victory.
Venancio spent the 2017-18 season on loan to Wednesday from Vitoria Setubal, although he had to wait until just before Christmas to make his debut in blue and white.
Thanks in part to the Owls’ injury crisis, the centre-back became a regular under the newly-appointed manager Jos Luhukay and both he and the Dutchman expressed a desire for Venancio to complete a permanent transfer at the end of the season.
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But no such move ever materialised, with Sheffield Wednesday spending the bulk of the 2018 summer transfer window under embargo.
And Venancio later joined Vitoria instead, for whom he has played just 14 times in 15 months.
