Sry i could only answer today, spent all sunday travelling back to Lisbon (by the way saw Blind at the Manchester Airport with some pals, Amesterdam gate was next to Lisbon´s)
Paulo Oliveira is our best defender and a crucial player in our setup. I like him alot. He´s a very quiet, simple and humble (the complete opposite of nowadays flamboyant characters in football), very close to his family (his start at Sporting was a bit slow, with his difficulties to adapt to a big city and being away from his parents), smart person (had high SAT and got into physiotheraphy course that is on standby), very professional player and committed to football. Personality wise he´s the player i appreciate the most at Sporting.
Regarding his playing style, he has been compared to Ricardo Carvalho by his youth rank/start of professional career coaches. His former manager at Famalicão, Fernando Chaló used to say he was better than Carvalho at youth level. But to surpass what Ricardo Carvalho achieved, he will need to have an exceptional career, either when he moves abroad and in our national team. In our league he has already proved that he is one of the best center backs.
About his characteristics, he does have a playing style similiar to Carvalho´s (with his composure and efficiency in tackling), he´s a very good man marker and tackler, with good sense of anticipation . He gives a sense of security (like Carvalho used to give) to his teammates and is very good covering his CB partner and the full backs. He reads the game very well. His ability of doing last ditch goal line or defensive line clearances have also earned him some comparisons to Hummels. I think he excels when he plays in highly disciplined defensive blocks with good coordination between the defenders with less space to cover (which has been the case under the guidance of Jorge Jesus where we have the best defence of the league in contrast with the anarchic defensive organization of Marco Silva last year where he had to be the "fireman" most of the time).
His negative (that Jorge Jesus is trying to fix) is his technical ability (not that it´s bad) but he has difficulties when dealing with the ball, whether when he´s trying to build from the back or under pressure, he resorts too many times to long passes. In order to be a top end center back he has to improve on that. Having a Center back who can support the midfield, with his passing and ability to break the line in the construction phase is crucial nowadays.
