Portugal forward Podence started sharing anecdotes from his career on social media on September 1, after being inactive for more than a year.

Daniel Podence has plenty of stories to tell. The Portugal forward, who came through the academies at Ourem and Sporting CP, has played for Benfica, Wolves (until 2023), and currently Al-Riyadh, with two loan spells at Olympiacos—one from the English club and one from the Saudi club. Although he has won several titles, including the Europa Conference League with Mendilibar, he is not one of the most widely known players. This does not diminish the value of his career, which is certainly worth telling.

Now, since September, despite limited playing time in Saudi Arabia, he has become one of the figures worth paying attention to. The reason is that he shares different anecdotes from his career almost every day on X, becoming one of the most compelling "influencers" in terms of content. The forward's account has also mentioned Ronaldo, Jota, and even Mendilibar's famous cartwheel punishment. "There is a coach who makes players do cartwheels when they make a mistake or make a decision he doesn't like, regardless of age or fame. Once during training, a goalkeeper passed the ball straight to the middle and lost possession of it. He then did 10 cartwheels during that training session." Podence does not explicitly name the Basque coach who worked with him at Olympiacos.

"We were doing shooting practice at Portugal Football City, with Guedes, Rafa, João Felix, Pizzi, Jota, Ronaldo, and me all present. It was my first time with the national team, so I had some interactions with some of them, but not all, and I wasn't very familiar with everyone. In this type of drill, we usually compete against each other, especially with those closest to us. So Rafa, Pizzi, and Felix competed for their own scores, while the rest of us just did our own thing. I just thought to do my best. After 6 shots, I scored 5 goals, which was the best result, or close to it. Then Ronaldo said, 'You have 5 now, right?' I thought no one was watching me, but then I suddenly realized that I was competing with the best player in the world at that time."

That's how he remembers his experience with the Portugal national team, where he made his debut. Speaking about his international career, he also recalled that Diogo Jota liked to play as a center-back during training. The forward also spoke about fines, Wolves' penalty wheel, and inside jokes in the dressing room—"You might find a bag of feces in your shoe"—and smoking, which is one of his more recent observations. "I was surprised in top dressing rooms. Every time before training or a match, when I went into the toilet, I could smell strong tobacco. Over the years, I found this more common than I thought. That doesn't mean I condone the practice, but I haven't seen a correlation between this habit and injuries or poor performance," he said.

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