On March 20, 1988, when the FC Porto fans celebrated a victory over Vitória de Setúbal for the Portuguese League, after having already celebrated becoming the World Champions, Alfredo Eduardo Quintana Braga was born in Havana, over seven thousand kilometres away. He crossed the Atlantic Ocean 23 years later, by then two metres and one centimetre tall, a senior in Physical Education, and became the first Cuban handball player in Portugal, joining a club he knew well since 2004 and who played with the same blue and white shirts as Industriales, the baseball team he always supported.

In ten years living in Portugal, Alfredo Quintana won many matches and several titles, made thousands of saves, and became one of the best handball goalkeepers in the world. More importantly, it was easy to see the human quality behind the player, unquestionable and that would touch all those that accompanied and met him. His humbleness and his extrovert nature, his kindness and his respect. His tremendous heart. He was a great man, in every sense of the word.

Spotted by the blue and white General Manager for hanball, José Magalhães, during the Pan-American championship of 2010, in Chile, he debuted for FC Porto on March 26, 2011, in a home match against Sporting da Horta. Less than two months later, he became national champion for the fourth time in his career, as he had already won 3 titles in Cuba, but his first in Portugal. In ten years, Hugo Laurentino was his main team mate between the blue and white posts, and Ljubomir Obradovic and Magnus Andersson were the coaches that helped him win nine national trophies: six championships, one cup, two supercups.

He was awarded with the Golden Dragons of Top Competition Athlete in 2014, when he became a Portuguese citizen and debuted for the Portuguese national team, which he would defend at the highest level in the 2020 European Cup and in the 2021 World Cup - in 2009, he had already played in the World Cup, but for Cuba. As for the city, he already belonged to Porto for some time. For that reason, whenever he missed Havana and the Caribbean sea, he enjoyed “going to Foz and breathe in the waves”. And he admitted he loved Francesinhas, as a good man of the City.

The best thing that ever happened to him in Porto, however, wasn’t the sporting success or the perfect integration to a reality so different from Cuba. Above all else was his family, which he started with Raquel, in 2015, greeting Alicia - worshipped as if she were an “angel” or a “princess” - in the summer of 2019.

Only 32 years old, Alfredo Quintana passed away at the Hospital de São João, in Porto, on February 26, 2021, four days after a cardiac arrest suffered just before another training session at Dragão Arena.