A Portuguese emigrant from Arcos de Valdevez boasts a vast collection of FC Porto memorabilia at his home, potentially the largest collection of its kind in the United States.
The story of 58-year-old Tadeu Silva was featured in the Luso-Americano newspaper. Having lived in the United States for nearly four decades, Silva’s devotion to FC Porto led him to create a small museum dedicated to the Portuguese club in his New Jersey home.
His collection includes thousands of items ranging from jerseys to sardine cans. Additionally, it features scarves, keychains, caps, boots, watches, perfumes, magazines, cups, balls, and even cheese boards, all bearing the FC Porto emblem.
Silva recounted that his passion began in primary school when he noticed that all his classmates supported other clubs.
“I thought: ‘I’ll be different, I’ll support Porto.’ I was five or six years old,” he said.
The connection endured. The first time Silva saw FC Porto play, in 1993, he was moved to tears. Despite being abroad, he managed to watch the ‘blue and whites’ at Estádio das Antas.
“Tears came to my eyes… The first time I entered that stadium. And with the longing of living abroad, the emotion is even greater,” he recalled.
Three years later, in 1996, a friend gifted him a keychain with the club’s emblem, sparking his decision to start collecting. Today, he admits that the collection “is not larger” due to space constraints.
“I buy a lot on eBay, and when I go to Portugal, I take one suitcase and return with three full of Porto items,” he confessed.
His friends and wife also contribute many items to this private museum.
One of the collection’s most notable pieces is a jersey signed by the team following their historic Europa League victory against Sporting Braga in 2011.
In an auction, Silva once paid $1,100 for a jersey and admits having invested about $130,000, nearly 112,000 euros, in this passion.
“I won’t sell the collection for any price,” he declared.
Indeed, everything in this Porto supporter’s home appears blue and white, and he recently had the chance to meet FC Porto’s current president, André Villas-Boas, in New Jersey.
A video of this small museum, shared by Silva on social media, can be viewed in the gallery above.
