Pedro Porro has taken ownership of the right-back berth in impressive fashion at the . Not only has he contributed to La Roja’s five-match run without conceding a goal – a streak not seen on the world stage since Italy at their home finals in 1990 – but he even popped up to against Austria in the Round of 32.
With Dani Carvajal, Spain’s first-choice right-back at UEFA EURO 2024, not included in the squad this time, Porro has more than justified coach Luis de la Fuente’s faith in his number 12. In the process, the Tottenham Hotspur player has taken another step on the long road travelled since leaving Don Benito, the small town in which he grew up – a place of 40,000 people in the region of Extremadura.
There he practically grew up with a ball at his feet according to one of his boyhood coaches, Carlos Moreno. "He spent a lot of hours here – he was always out on the pitch even when there was no training,” recalls Moreno, who coached Porro when he was in his early teens at Gimnastico Don Benito. “A lot of the time he’d ask the coaches of other teams if he could play with them.”
Porro’s mother, Eva, worked in a supermarket while his father, Luis, did “a bit of everything”. Young Pedro spent a lot of time, therefore, with his maternal grandfather, Antonio. “His grandfather would always come along – to training sessions and matches, both home and away – whether it was hot or cold or raining. He was always there.” Moreno remembers Porro's grandfather giving him a sweet whenever he scored a goal.
Moreover, he recalls the young Porro as a winger “with power, a very good strike on him and very good qualities” but adds that “what set him apart from the rest was his character as a winner, his competitive gene. Sometimes there’d be complaints and arguments because he'd be demanding of his team-mates what he gave himself.” He offers the example of the day Porro scored six goals but went home angry because his team had lost 7-6.
There was a lighter side too, Moreno adding: "Off the pitch, Pedro was happiness itself. He was a very funny and spontaneous lad, somebody who people warmed to. On the bus he’d always be telling jokes.” Indeed, the friends he made then remain close to him and they still all meet up whenever he returns to Don Benito.
While Porro stood out from his peers, Extremadura, on the border with Portugal, is one of Spain’s less well connected regions. "It’s a place that gets forgotten and so it was very unusual that you could be spotted by a scout here," notes Moreno. "But he was able to take that step forward because one day he went to Madrid to play for an Extremadura representative team. If it wasn’t for that match, perhaps he wouldn’t be where he is today because nobody would have spotted him.”
In 2015 Porro joined the youth ranks at Rayo Vallecano before moving on to Girona two years later. Alex Granell, a former captain of the Catalan club, remembers the impact he made there. “The lads from the junior teams normally go unnoticed because they’re quiet but he had a big impact on the group from day one because of the way he was," says Granell. "It was from a position of respect but he was quite bold and brash. He was humble but quite daring too. He was always like that – if he wanted to nutmeg you, he would do because he had that talent.”
That was not all. Granell goes on: “From the first day he had a voice in the dressing room. He was very young but he had charisma and in next to no time he became very popular. It felt like he’d been there a long time with us." Interestingly, as an aside, Granell reflects that, in Porro, he saw a youngster wanting to “use football as the vehicle to a better life.”
The youngster's breakthrough season was 2018/19 when he made 32 top-flight appearances – 25 of them starts. His first goal came against Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey in January 2019. Two months later, he earned his first Spain Under-21 cap. Granella affirms that here was a player with the “talent” to shine and also the “courage” to do a defensive job. He mentions also his “elite” technical level and that strong competitive gene – as well as the “impudence” that marked him out on and off the field.
Although Girona were relegated, that summer Porro joined Manchester City and went on loan to Real Valladolid where he made another seven top-flight starts. It was the following season, 2020/21, on loan at Sporting Clube de Portugal, that he took his next big step, though. "Everyone could see his qualities but he was lacking consistency and confidence," says Antonio Adan, a team-mate in the Portuguese capital. "In Lisbon he took a giant step forward in his career."
It was during that initial campaign with Sporting that he made his senior debut for Spain, in a World Cup qualifying win in Georgia in March 2021. With Ruben Amorim on the bench and Porro and Nuno Mendes operating as full-backs, Sporting secured their first league title for 19 years. Adan highlights his capacity to “cover a lot of ground and get into scoring positions”, while remarking that his subsequent time in the Premier League with Tottenham has improved the defensive side of his game. "He was just needing a bit of that to become one of the best.”
After 12 goals and 20 assists in 98 matches across all competitions with Sporting, Porro made that move to England in January 2023. He has subsequently made 117 Premier League outings for Spurs and scored nine goals, as well as helping the club capture the UEFA Europa League in 2025.
Crucially, amid his footballing feats, he has not forgotten his roots. Before departing for the World Cup, Porro returned to Don Benito for a double baptism: the christening of his son and also the renaming of the football pitch on which he played as a boy. It now carries a name familiar to football fans the world over: Pedro Porro.
The image of Pedro Porro with Gimnastico Don Benito is courtesy of the club
Sources: FIFA Official
