Former Rangers star Fabio Cardoso might’ve struggled to adapt to the rigours of Scottish football, but he’s reportedly about to be charged with adapting to Porto’s Estádio do Dragão.
Portuguese defender Cardoso, now 27, was an expensive flop at Rangers having cost the club a reported £1.5m from Vitoria Setubal and being released from his deal only a year later.
Signing for Primeira Liga side Santa Clara, Cardoso has resurrected his career and now looks set for a major transfer to Portuguese giants Porto.
Following three successful years at Santa Clara – where he has been the club’s stand-out performer – Record are reporting he’s set for a £2.2m move to the Dragões.
That’s a long way from the flying elbows of Motherwell star Ryan Bowman and the broken nose he sustained at Hampden.
It’s an impressive rise for a player written off in Scotland and a distant remnant of the expensive Pedro Caixinha mistake at Ibrox.
But at the very least it proves that Cardoso did have talent and there was a good player in there, something many supporters felt at the time.
However, the centre-back failed to adapt to both the pressures of playing for Rangers and the physicality of the league and he’ll go down as yet another expensive mistake of the era.
But perhaps Rangers could face off against the defender next season with Porto reaching the Champions League group stages after finishing second behind Sporting Lisbon in Portugal.
Cardoso isn’t the only Pedro Caixinha-era ex-Ger grabbing headlines by moving to another club as another expensive flop breaks hearts with his latest transfer.
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