Jose Sa is loyal, works hard and doesn’t take any nonsense. A bit of Portuguese spirit goes a long way.
Header Image - Jack Thomas, Wolves via here.
Jose Sa is a man in a hurry - but for all the right reasons. At the top of this interview, the priority is picking up his daughter. That link to a family unit sings loudest for the current Wolves goalkeeper.
He has talked about the interpersonal connections within the Midlands club being like a “pack” and that is showing on the pitch as they pulled clear of the relegation zone in the last few weeks. Sa has walked through the storm of 2024/25 to see the other side after facing challenges to the number one spot and time out of the team. It’s a goalkeeper’s life.
The force is strong with this one, although Sa describes himself as “a very quiet guy”. The 32-year-old doesn’t do the hard man outer shell. He is all in with his teammates and isn’t afraid to show it. “I focus on them and I don’t care about the others. Sometimes I cry with them.” Passion is not something that is missing from Sa’s glove bag.
That sense of unity also extends to the goalkeeping unit. “I have a very good relationship with the other goalkeepers. We are four and it feels nice to work with them, because they are always happy and try to do their best. I have to do my best to be better than them because that’s how I like to work. Even in training, I like to do better than the others.”
The resilience of the former Benfica academy youth was set in granite early when he made his way through teenage years with a strong sense of independence even if the (technical) guidance was missing. “Until I was 16 or 17, I didn’t have goalkeeping or a coach to teach or advise me. Never. I started working more on goalkeeper stuff when I arrived in Benfica. I said I will try to do this as my profession, and to give everything on the pitch.”
Sa made his senior debut for Maritimo B as an 18-year-old. It was a struggle to get regular appearances in the first-team squad. A move to Porto in 2016 saw him work alongside his childhood hero, Iker Casillas who had just moved there after 25 years with Real the previous summer.
“I learned a lot. We have to take everything that we can from the other goalkeepers, young or older, and coaches. Every coach has a different style of training, and sometimes you think that they are very good. Sometimes you don’t think they’re so good, but you have to try to take out the best things of everyone. I tried to learn from Iker’s experience to improve.”
Sa is very much his own man. He has had to be to make it this far. A goalkeeper’s uniform is different from the rest and independence of thought is a critical asset even in a team game. The key word has been adaptability, especially in a modern football world where managers change as much as the sun goes behind the clouds – and that happens a lot in England.
Sa adapts. He doesn’t like Wolverhampton city’s lack of restaurants, but he’s a bit more diplomatic than Noni Madueke.
“For me, it’s easy to adapt. I’ve been to Greece and Portugal in different situations. I only like to change the coach when I change the team. But when the coach is struggling - and the club think that they need to change, or something like that - yeah, I can cope very well.”
Everyone can do with a little help from their friends, though. Sa is as human as they come when connection is needed. If he needs the help, he will often seek out the goalkeeper’s best man – the GK coach.
“I like to have a friend who I can talk to - a person that we can trust if sometimes we need to say something or take out something that is hurting us inside. You know, all of us are are all the time thinking, ‘Oh no, this is not right. This is not right!’ And you want to talk with someone to get it out. I like that my goalkeeper coach will be that person that I can talk to and I can trust.”
The Greece lightning came at Olympiacos after Sa saw life beyond Porto, where he made 16 appearances. He was not afraid to move when Casillas had regained his position and the current Portuguese No. 1 Diogo Costa was very much the next cab off the rank. The move to the Karaiskakis Stadium was set in motion where he would reunite with the coach who gave him his debut, Pedro Martins.
It was the making of him in many ways. He played a lot. There is nothing like being on the pitch.“For me, you have always to have one number one, and the others are the support”.
Sa won two league titles and a league and cup double too. He even ended up playing against Wolves in a last-16 Europa League tie in an empty stadium the day before football got cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Playing in the Premier League was always the dream for the 6 foot 4 inch stopper. At the beginning of 2025, Sa became Wolverhampton’s most utilised goalkeeper of the Premier League era when he made his 121st appearance against Southampton. He won Wolves's Fans' Player of the 2021–22 Season and the Players' Player of the 2021–22 Season awards.
Replacing one of Portugal’s best ever goalkeepers, Rui Patricio, who he talked to before coming to England, was some mission back in 2021. During that time, he has also swapped glove brands; from Adidas to ELITE. Sa became Elite’s first Premier League ambassador.
“I worked with Adidas all my career. I never changed Adidas, but ELITE spoke with me and they sent me two pairs of gloves to try. In the first place I wasn’t sure because I had worked with Adidas for so long. They then gave me a second offer. And I said, ‘Oh, at least I can try to see how they fit, and I tried them, I liked them. I said, why not? I ordered a few more to see. And after that I changed.’
Sa has had to take the rough with the smooth this campaign, with Sam Johnstone coming in during the summer via now ex-boss Gary O’Neill. When we mentioned that the previous manager claimed that Johnstone’s presence had the knock-on effect of elevating his form, the Braga-born man knocks that suggestion back with typical Portuguese directness.
It’s fair to say there’s been a huge national thread running through his career, but especially at Molineux with compatriot Bruno Lage bringing him in and current boss Vitor Pereira reinstalling Sa’s first choice spot. He has said that Pereira gave the club back their belief and confidence.
“When you have a lot of your countrymen around you, it’s easier. When you move to another team and you have a lot of Portuguese it’s easier, because it seems like you are in the homeland, you know. And so they helped me a lot. When I decided to come here, I was here with Joao (Moutinho), Ruben Neves, and Nelson Semedo, and they helped me to settle.”
Sa is a no-nonsense guy, the kind of man who will stand up and stick to what he believes in. His conviction carries a message for any aspiring goalkeepers out there that it is more important to believe all the way through, no matter whether the day brings rain or sunshine.
“Never ever give up, because goalkeeping is a difficult position. You can have beautiful times in goal, but sometimes you can be in hell in one game. You can do 89 minutes perfect and at the last minute you can make a mistake and everything then comes on top of you. You have to have a strong mentality, strong personality and work always at the maximum that you can. Never give up.”
Give up is not in the Jose Sa dictionary. It’s always about the next action, not the last mistake. Nobody can argue with that.
