Melbourne Victory skipper Roderick Miranda has enjoyed a storied career that started with growing up as a Benfica academy graduate, an Under-20 FIFA World Cup final showdown with Philippe Coutinho and Danilo, and featured appearances in the FA Cup, La Liga and Europa League amongst many others. But halfway across the world in Australia, the soon to be 34-year-old has since found a place for he and his family to call 'home'.
Ahead of his 100th first team game across all competitions for the Victory, which will also be a decisive match in the club's battle for the postseason finals, Roderick reflected with us on a 15-year professional career that shows no signs of slowing down.
Some might say the international break perhaps came at a good time for the club after some disappointing results in the last six rounds. Has the week off been treated as a reset for those who weren’t off on national duty?
"It’s always good to have some time to recover the body and mind and put everyone back in the same boat to attack the final part of the season. Everybody is feeling fresh and feeling good about the derby (against Adelaide) coming.
"Some players were away (on national duty) so it’s hard to keep every player thinking in the same direction. A lot has happened in these last two weeks."
Has there been any chatter around the club about Ryan Teague’s international debut for Australia this week and Nishan Velupillay in both World Cup Qualifiers for the Socceroos? Did you get an opportunity to watch any of those matches?
"Of course, we have our inside jokes and everybody has been happy with Teague-y and Nish as well as Daniel Arzani. Now that everybody is back together, that’s most important. Our (Australia Under-23) guys were back today so we have a full squad and now we’re more than ready to face Adelaide."
Are those national team players such as Ryan Teague, Nishan Velupillay and Daniel Arzani slated to start this weekend or will they be eased back into club football?
"That will be a coaching decision. We need to see how they are, especially because they’re big trips especially with a significant time difference. But everyone is back so we’ll leave it to the coaches to make that decision."
You were fortunate enough to represent Portugal at underage level including at an under-20 World Cup. Do you gaze on during international breaks with any regret that you couldn’t break into the Portuguese senior team? Did you ever come close to doing so?
"I came really close in 2017. I was in the provisional list for the Confederations Cup and I was one of the last names to be removed from the list. After that I knew I was always on a very big list for the national team for the next year to year-and-a-half. Unfortunately (the debut) never came, but football is like that. Sometimes you are lucky enough to get a chance, sometimes not.
"But my mind is already away from that. Portugal has such a beautiful new generation coming so I think the national team is in really good hands."
You said last week that the club ‘needs to look at ourselves in the mirror’. What exactly does that mean in terms of planning and actions? What has head coach Arthur Diles been focusing on during the break to ensure the club doesn’t slip out of the top six?
"I think we want everyone to have more accountability and demand more of each other. We know the quality we have in the team, as do the critics. Maybe we are not matching the expectations around the team and we have felt that. We felt we should be performing much better and getting better results.
"We need to work out what each player can do better for the whole 90 minutes, because it’s not useful to have a really good five-minute period. We need to make sure we can have a good 90-minute performance each week."
The football at times has probably been a little better than the results it has produced, but the losses in western Sydney, Newcastle and Adelaide all came from 15-minute blocks where the boys were completely overrun for just a short period. What if anything can a football manager and a captain do between games to stamp that out?
"It’s more a mental thing. We know we cannot switch off during the game, because unfortunately against Melbourne Victory every team plays at 150 percent. They always give a little more.
"It’s about making sure we’re always on and every little chance we create or allow them to create is always an opportunity or a danger. That’s our focus at the moment."
You have now notched up more first team games at the Victory than at any other club in a 15-year career. What is it in particular about the Victory, the city of Melbourne and the country of Australia as a whole that has kept you here for so long?
"I was really well received when I first arrived here. Everybody here, all the fans made me and my family really welcome. Afterwards when you start having kids you start making decisions that are about the family. (My children) settled in amazingly and they call Melbourne home now. That makes it very hard for me to go back to Portugal or to any other place.
"When it’s just you or just you and your partner there are easier decisions to move to get more money or more exposure. Once you have a family you need to slow down that decision making process and think what would be best for the family. I have been very happy playing for Melbourne Victory and my family are settled so we’ve been trying to make it work (for the long term). That might be why I’ve been here for a few seasons."
All things going to plan, could you see yourself finishing your playing career in the A-League?
"That’s a question I get a lot. I wouldn’t mind, whenever I finish my career, to stay in Australia to start the next stage of my life. But it’s always hard to predict what the future will hold, especially in this environment."
What surprised you about playing and living in Australia, either good or bad and on the field or off it? What were the most difficult and the easiest things about adjusting to work and life here?
"The most challenging aspect was the distance, especially keeping in touch with everybody. It’s not just the distance but the time difference so it’s really hard using only mornings or nights to speak with friends and family back in Europe.
"I was really surprised by the competitiveness of the league itself. Just because it was not well known in Europe back in the day. I think it’s getting a bit more exposure now, but before it was anonymous. I was really surprised by how every team can perform against any other team.
"The lifestyle here in Melbourne is amazing. It’s a beautiful city, there’s always something happening, and everyone is really friendly. I was really surprised about all of that."
Did you reach out to anyone about playing in Australia before agreeing to come to Melbourne?
"No, not at all. Australia was always my dream travel destination. I don’t know why - maybe it was some pictures I saw when I was younger - but I’ve always wanted to come here. Australia always stuck in my head and when the opportunity appeared, there was a lot that I needed to think about like distance and family, but I’m really happy with the decision I made."
Has there been anyone who has asked you about playing in Australia because they may have been considering or seeking an offer?
"Some players have messaged me about life and football and how everything works here. It’s really hard though being allowed to have only five foreign players in (an A-League) team, so there aren’t many opportunities to come."
What about your former Portugal teammate Nuno Reis? You arrived here at almost the same time as him and he ended up playing for Melbourne City for three years. Did you have anything to do with him whilst he was here?
"He was living closer to where Melbourne City trains in the northern suburbs. I played a lot alongside him in the academies and the underage Portugal teams. I also played a lot against him because I was at Benfica and he was at Sporting. Unfortunately here we never had a chance to spend some time together."
Let’s go back to the year 2000. 25 years ago already! How was a nine-year-old Roderick Miranda discovered by Benfica’s youth academy?
"I was playing for my local team as a striker. I was scoring lots of goals every game and I was a very tall kid, taller than the other kids in the under-10s.
"A former Benfica scout used to play locally with my dad and he (the scout) was watching me play, but he had no idea that I was my dad’s son. He started speaking to (my dad) about this nine-year-old kid (me) that he was watching. They had a chat and he made my father promise to try to send me to trials for Benfica. Sporting was already looking at me for some trials. One month later I went to Benfica for a trial, they liked me, and I stayed there right up to my professional first team debut."
How did your father, being an ex-footballer, feel about you pursuing football ahead of school and anything else at such a young age?
"I think it was natural, because my older brother was a footballer as well. He never made it to a professional level because he got a big injury around age 16-17 and started pursuing other things.
"Here in Australia, every kid has amazing opportunities to play so many different sports. Back in Portugal, you have football, and football. That was it. All of my friends would play football, at school everybody was playing football, and I was lucky enough to have some skills.
"Benfica was an amazing club with a really good academy that made me a better player."
Some of our readers may not know you’ve got a few very significant links to the Premier League through some former teammates and coaches. Do you have any recollections of training and playing alongside Ruben Amorim at Benfica?
"I never thought he would become a coach! Not because of his football skills or his intelligence, but because he was the changing room clown. He had a really fun personality and was always doing something to make people laugh. When I heard he started as a coach I was a little bit surprised and wondered how the guy I played with could become so serious!
"But he was a very intelligent player. He could play in many different positions, so maybe that’s why he’s a brilliant coach, because he has such a great understanding of the game."
You played under Nuno Espírito Santo at both Rio Ave and Wolves and now he is potentially guiding Nottingham Forest back to the UEFA Champions League during their third season back in the top flight. It’s hard to follow the Premier League in depth from Australia but do you have any thoughts on what he is achieving at Forest and is there anything about their game at the moment that you recognise from your time under him?
"I’m not really surprised about that because I always knew he was really good. If he finds the right players and the right atmosphere, he’s a coach who can produce this kind of stuff.
"At Wolves we had a couple of seasons where I think we finished sixth or seventh (seventh in both 2018/19 and 2019/20) and got a Europa League spot, so he’s already shown what he can do. It’s therefore not really a big surprise for me. Maybe it is for other people, especially a club like Nottingham that hasn’t been a top club in the past, but not for me."
Anyone who looks up your Wikipedia profile is going to see, in English, the curious phrase “Knight of the Order of Prince Henry”, or in Portuguese, “Cavaleiro da Ordem do Infante Dom Henrique”. We had to do a bit of a deep dive with a translator on this one because we couldn’t find any information in English, but you had a public award bestowed upon you for finishing as runners-up in the 2011 FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Colombia. What do you remember about that?
"It’s a special honour where the Portuguese President gives awards to people who do something for the country. We got to the final against Brazil in 2011 and nobody gave us a chance. Our games weren’t broadcast in Portugal but we got through the group stage and then through the first knockout leg, but still nobody was talking about it.
"Then I think from the quarter-finals onwards they sent one channel out to show the games in Portugal. They were really late at night, I think two or three o'click in the morning (in Portugal), but once they were on TV a lot of people started to follow it. Nobody gave us a lot of credit for it because we had some golden generations in the past, with guys like Luis Figo and Rui Costa, but we got to the final which we lost against Brazil. Oscar scored a brace unfortunately.
"But the way we put Portugal on the map touched the President (Aníbal Cavaco Silva) so he called us up to give us a special honour. That’s something that will stay with all of us forever."
Was that before or after you began your loan to Servette in Switzerland? Was it your first time playing overseas?
"It was before. I had played in some overseas tournaments but that was my first time on ‘the big stage’."
Even casting aside the importance of the game in terms of fighting for the finals, it must be an honour to lead the team out not just against what many consider to be Melbourne Victory’s biggest rival (Adelaide) but it’s the club’s third annual Pride Cup match this weekend. We sadly heard just last week from Adelaide’s Josh Cavallo that he receives death threats on social media since his historic coming out. What does it mean to you personally to be part of a club and a league that stands up for inclusion and diversity in football when so many other leagues around the world have significant issues with combating prejudices such as homophobia?
"For me personally, this is something that shouldn’t have to be a subject. I will always teach my kids to treat everyone the way you would like to be treated.
"With (Josh) Cavallo, it’s such a shame that he would receive death threats for something that is his own life. It has nothing to do with anyone else. When he came out, it didn’t interfere with my life or with anyone else’s. It might encourage others to do the same (opening up about their sexuality), but other than that it’s his life.
"It’s really important that the A-League is trying to show that everybody should respect and be respected. (Homophobia) should not be a problem. This is about community, living together and respecting one another. It’s great that the club and the league is associated with this initiative.
"I think Victory are doing a really good job trying to promote equality and respect. It can be hard to change some minds but I hope this can open some eyes or educate some people to understand that everybody is the same."