[2] Except for a two-year stint in La Liga with Sporting de Gijón (nearly one year of inactivity due to tendonitis),[3] when most key players left the Estádio das Antas in support of director of football – later president – Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa,[4] he was in all important moments of the rebirth of the club: the 20-year Primeira Liga drought end in the 1978–79 season, the first UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final against Juventus in 1984 and, while he missed the 1987 final of the European Cup against Bayern Munich after breaking a leg in training days before, he netted five times in the side's victorious campaign, including once in the semi-finals with Dynamo Kyiv;[5] he still recovered in time to play in the European Supercup against Ajax and the Intercontinental Cup against Peñarol, on both occasions captaining the winner and scoring the opening goal in the latter game for a 2–1 victory.

[2] Due to personality clashes with Porto's board of directors, he signed with Sporting CP,[8] ending his career in 1990–91 after still netting 22 goals in his final season and also helping the Lions to the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup, aged 34.

[11][12] He remained the best goalscorer in the national territory for more than two decades only behind Benfica's Nené, and later returned to Porto, going on to work with the club in an ambassadorial role.

[14] Gomes was part of the squads at both UEFA Euro 1984[15] and the 1986 World Cup, reaching the semi-finals of the former tournament, being one of the few players that did not defect from the national side after the latter competition (following the infamous Saltillo Affair) and ending his international career two years later.

[16] Apart from being a technically gifted player and a prolific goalscorer, Gomes' talent resided on a fantastic positional sense, which made him very dangerous inside the six-yard box, and earned him a reputation as a "poacher" in the media.