Keeper coach Nuno and his season at Leeds… with Paul Robinson!

Die-hard Leeds fans watching Saturday’s match on television might notice a familiar face in our dugout.

Not the world-renowned Head Coach who has won trophies and enjoyed phenomenal success throughout his career, or the First Team Assistant who has been at Spurs his whole life and is widely regarded as one of the greatest Premier League defenders of the modern era.

Rather, they may remember our First Team Goalkeeper Coach Nuno Santos, the veteran Portuguese gloveman who spent a season as a player at Elland Road in 1998/99.

Out of contract at hometown club Vitoria Setubal, a then 25-year-old Nuno came to England for a trial at Leeds in 1998. He ended up staying for the whole season, but didn’t play a competitive first team game for them and swiftly moved back to Portugal to join Benfica in 1999.

But what’s perhaps more intriguing than an anomalous spell in England for an agile stopper who spent most of his playing career in his homeland is the fact that the man who kept him out of the picture at Elland Road was a certain future Spurs legend and England international, Paul Robinson.

With Nigel Martyn the club’s undisputed number one and back-up goalkeeper Mark Beeney out for virtually the whole season with a long-term injury, it was down to Nuno and a young ‘Robbo’ to provide cover during that period.

But on all four occasions when Martyn couldn’t play – a three-game run in late-October and a home clash with West Ham in December, three of those in the Premier League – it was the up-and-coming Robinson who got the nod to start, with Nuno named as a substitute. Robbo would go on to make 119 appearances for Leeds before joining us in 2004 and endearing himself to fans of club and country as “England’s number one”.

“It was difficult for him because he didn’t play at all, but he’s such a nice chap – that’s one thing I can assure you of,” said Paul, recalling his time alongside Nuno at Elland Road.

“His English has improved a lot now, compared to what it was back in the day. He didn’t speak that much English but he trained very, very hard and he was genuinely a very good guy to have as part of the group. He never got his opportunity on the field but you could see he was a good goalkeeper in training and when he played in the reserves. He was just unfortunate that there was a very good stock of goalkeepers at the club at the time and he didn’t get the opportunity to play. He integrated himself into the group nicely, though, and you can see the drive and determination that he’s got to be able to get to where he is today.”

Nuno did rack up several appearances for the Whites’ reserves over the course of his year in West Yorkshire and had the divisions at that level not been regionalised at the time, he might well have played against one of the men he now shares our dugout with, Ledley King having been a second-string player for us at that point, on the cusp of breaking into the first team.

We met Leeds four times at senior level over the course of the 1998/99 campaign, playing them twice in the league and twice in the FA Cup, our fifth round tie having gone to a replay, which we won 2-0 at White Hart Lane. We also memorably lifted the League Cup against Leicester City at Wembley – how we’d love to do that again this season, with Nuno playing his part in support of Hugo Lloris, Joe Hart, Paulo Gazzaniga and company.