If a week is a long time in football, two years is an age.
Since the summer of 2024, Tottenham Hotspur have had four permanent managers, won their first major trophy in 17 years, played in the Champions League and flirted dangerously with relegation.
At the start of that period, Pedro Porro was on the fringes of the Spain setup. After a good season with Tottenham under Ange Postecoglou, Luis de la Fuente somewhat surprisingly left him at home as his squad went on to win the European Championship. Now, 24 months on, he has emerged as a key member of the national team aiming to win their second World Cup, and should be considered among the very best right-backs in the world.
To explain his absence as Spain marched to victory in Germany at Euro 2024, we should start at the beginning of the Porro debate.
Like his club-mate Djed Spence, who often plays on the opposite flank to Porro at Tottenham, it has taken a stellar World Cup campaign for football to appreciate the extent of the Spaniard’s talent. Often characterised by his deficiencies, an attacking side which brings the best out of Porro has maximised his strengths in front of a global audience.
Ironically, one person who was under no illusions about Porro’s talent was previous head coach Thomas Frank, who was sacked in February after a nightmare seven-month period in north London. Above Micky van de Ven, Argentina’s Cristian Romero — whom Porro will confront in Sunday’s final — or last summer’s marquee signings Mohammed Kudus and Xavi Simons, Frank believed Porro was the only player who could play for one of Europe’s truly elite clubs.
The evidence speaks for itself: Manchester City were among his suitors last summer as Pep Guardiola looked for a new starting right-back, and Real Madrid were among his admirers ahead of the World Cup. Yet there is a feeling that, perhaps until this summer, Porro was not wholly appreciated by club or country.
On the senior international stage, Porro’s introduction to De la Fuente could not have been more inauspicious.
The right-back had worked with Spain’s head coach at under-21 level and was handed his first start of De La Fuente’s tenure against Scotland in March 2023. Seven minutes into the game, Porro slipped on the ball near the right touchline, allowing Andy Robertson to claim possession and square to Scott McTominay, who put Steve Clarke’s side in front.
Porro was substituted at half-time for the more experienced Dani Carvajal, and Spain went on to lose 2-0 — still their last competitive defeat. Porro failed to win his place back from Carvajal, who won the 2024 Champions League with Real Madrid and finished fourth in Ballon d’Or voting.
Neither could he displace a 38-year-old Jesus Navas, a natural right-winger who had retreated to right-back in his twilight years with Sevilla and retired from football five months after lifting the European Championship.
“It makes you feel a bit helpless,” Porro told Spanish outlet Cadena SER after his Euro 24 snub. “You work all year to be there, but, well, everyone has their opinion and that’s football. It’s normal, any player would like to play in an international competition, especially for their country… but that’s it. Keep working on it. That’s what I was taught, and that’s what I’m doing.”
While he worked his way back into the Spain setup, the following two seasons at club level were far from plain sailing. Porro has comfortably played more Premier League minutes than any of his Spurs team-mates since 2024-25 (5,405), far ahead of goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario (4,950) in second place. Due to his availability and importance at both ends in Tottenham’s Europa League-winning campaign, he was probably their outstanding performer under Postecoglou, a reality which also reflects the injury crisis and calamitous league season (they finished 17th).
Porro’s goals against Eintracht Frankfurt and Bodo/Glimt in the quarter-final and semi-final of that Europa League run were decisive, but the season was not without shaky moments — memorably when up against Beck Ray Enoru, who worked as a sales assistant at high-street clothing store Zara to supplement his semi-professional wage, in Tottenham’s 3-0 extra-time win over non-League Tamworth in the FA Cup.
And while his performances were consistently solid last term — he was possibly the first name on Tottenham’s team sheet when fit — Porro was consumed by the dark cloud hanging over the club through the most trying of league campaigns.
He created 17 more chances (52) than the next highest creator (Simons with 35) and ranked behind only Joao Palhinha and Cristian Romero in duels won. He was essential in helping the team to stave off relegation under Roberto De Zerbi, pushing forward into the right half-space from full-back to receive passes between the lines, and providing a solution to Palhinha’s limitations with the ball.
Two league assists last season represented an under-performance for a player who is not as consistent in dead-ball situations as he should be. But, for the most part, Porro was let down by his coaches (until De Zerbi), whose tactical direction limited his attacking influence.
Now, having won the starting right-back position from Marcos Llorente in Spain’s second match in the tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico, football is awake to what Porro is and can be.
In a possession-heavy team, the former Sporting CP man has the support from team-mates to play his way out of tight situations, something not often afforded him under Frank, and the space and licence to create on the overlap and drive into the box from the half spaces. His goal against France in the semi-final was world-class, and his header against Austria, ghosting in from right-back to the near post, is a movement Spurs have coaxed from him several times before.
In these conditions, it’s tough to make an argument that there is a right-back better equipped to shine across the Premier League, and Tottenham tying him down to a long-term contract before the start of his World Cup campaign is one of their shrewdest and most important moves of the transfer window.
After a turbulent two years, Porro will return to a club with a coach, as well as an ownership group, who appear intent on providing the conditions for him to thrive as he does for Spain. Tottenham are guaranteed a World Cup winner in their squad for the third successive tournament following Hugo Lloris in 2018 and Romero in 2022, but if Porro and Spain turn up at MetLife Stadium on Sunday as they did against France, the identity of that winner may not be a contest.