He has been taken to the hearts of the Tynecastle faithful quicker than he ever imagined possible. And as he will go on to explain, the feeling is more than mutual. But even in his sleepy hometown of Mafamude in the Portuguese municipality of Vila Nova de Gaia, all they are hearing about, is Claudio Braga.
“We had some days off over the break, so I went back to Portugal,” Braga told Herald Sport.
“We had like a barbecue, and I don't drink, but of course, my family, some of the guys, they had a few beers and suddenly they are singing my song that the fans made up for me!
“They didn’t really know the lyrics because not a lot of people in Portugal speak English, but they were trying their best. It was so funny.”
The striker may be the subject of this season’s catchiest terracing earworm, but the reasons that the Hearts fans are singing his name long and loud go beyond the fact that it fits rather nicely into the Queen classic, Radio Gaga. Though, he does admit to being rather bemused by it all.
“A lot of people started sending me these voice messages. I was like, what is this?” he said.
“And then I started listening and I swear, I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to believe it, but I wasn't believing it because it was just so early [in my Hearts career]. It was so early. And I'm like, damn. And it's actually a very good song.
“The craziest part for me is that I just came here. Of course, I'm grateful for that. It's very good to feel the love of the supporters, and when they sing my song I get a little bit of goosebumps and some excitement and try to do better because I know they are singing for me.
“But it's kind of weird, to be honest, because I didn't do anything special until now, but I feel very good that they would do this for me.
“I feel like things have started well. I could ask for a little bit more, but it would be difficult to start in a better way. But in football, you can be very good and then suddenly you are very bad, and it doesn't matter what you did before, so I just need to keep my feet on the ground still and keep working.”
It is that modest, diligent mentality allied to his talent that has brought Braga this far, and explains in part why the Hearts support have taken to him immediately. That, and as he makes a point of mentioning, the influence of his family.
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The 25-year-old is warm, engaging and unfailingly polite, the sort of personality he would likely credit to his upbringing, where he was immersed in a shared familial love of the beautiful game.
“Basically, I don't remember doing anything else but playing football,” he said.
“I always played football. I started in kind of like a ‘hood’ team. It was just a team that was not in a federation or anything but were just playing against other teams that were like that. Some boys from the hood!
“My father was the coach, so me and my father were always together. It was a very, very good time. I just always played football. I never cared about girls, never cared about anything else.
“When I was a kid, my father would always take me and my brother to play football together, all the time we were together. I didn't have a choice to like football or not, because we always did it. I have an older brother that also plays for fun, he doesn't play professionally, but he always played with me. My sister, now she's 18 and she plays football too. So does everybody.
“So, yeah, I just literally came from a house that loves football in every sense.”
To get his opportunity as a professional though, or at least to make enough money from the game to support himself, he would eventually have to look further afield, as much as a wrench as it was for him to leave the safety of his support network behind.
“In Portugal, I played in the third league, and then they made a new third league there between the previous third and the second,” he explained.
“I stayed there for two years. I was getting some money already, but I couldn't live from it, so I lived in my mother's house.
“So, I just didn't ask for money for anything and helped out a little bit so that I would have enough for living and I didn't need to work on the side.
“For me, it was already a very good step. I kept trying to go further, but in Portugal, there's a lot of quality and a lot of foreigners also coming to play. So, the spaces in Portuguese teams are always very, very tight. So, I decided to take a risk.”
Not half. An invitation to a trial on the frigid Norwegian coast at Moss FK - at the time, a club plying its trade in their own third tier – seemed a world away from the more comfortable climes of home. Though, at least the forthcoming Scottish winter shouldn’t hold any shocks for the striker.
“The first time I got to Norway was in January and there was snow everywhere,” he said.
“I'd never seen snow falling before. That was the first time I saw snow falling and I'm like, damn, this is not going to be easy. It was really, really cold.
“But for me, in life, and I know maybe it shouldn't be like this, but if the football is fine, if it's going well, then I'm happy and everything else doesn't matter. Of course, that is if my family is healthy and everything, but the cultural difference was so much easier to adapt to when the football was going well for me.
“It was hard to leave my family of course, but to be honest, it was a bit because of them that I did it, in a way. They always supported me, and they knew I had to go.
“Before I got to Norway, I'd had two good seasons in Portugal, and it seemed like nothing was happening when it comes to going to a bigger club or getting better contracts. There was a little bit of frustration in that.
“When the chance happened, it took six months for me to accept the offer. And it was not even an offer, it was going on trial. I knew I was going to go and get the contract, but I had no idea what I was going to receive, what sort of money, if I get a house or not, things like that. I had zero idea. I just wanted to go there and see what happens.
“And if it didn't work out, I'd come back to Portugal and get a club in the fourth league or third league anyway. So, that was why I decided to take the risk, and also because my family told me you need to risk, it's good for you, just go. If you go and you like it, that's good for you. If you go and you don't like it, we are here for you.”
Thankfully for Braga, the gamble paid off. He banged in 21 goals in his first season, finishing as Moss FK’s top scorer, and he wasn’t the only one to notice he was playing at a level of football below his actual capabilities. The only disappointment when the bigger fish of Aalesunds FK came calling was that they themselves didn’t operate in a slightly larger pond.
“The first year we were champions,” he said.
“When I got to the second league I figured out that I was completely fine playing at that level and I knew that I could play higher. I think it was obvious that I could get to a first league and play at that level.
“When I got the transfer to Aalesunds in the second league, I was actually a little bit upset for not getting one to the first league, because I knew I could do it and I knew I could do better.
“But I guess everything was made in God's time, so, I'm happy for that.”
They say, mind you, that God works in mysterious ways. The plan for Braga would indeed soon include his long-awaited move to a top-tier league in the Scottish Premiership, but the path to Gorgie wasn’t without its bumps along the way.
Having been sold on the move by Neil Critchley and setting his heart on it, Braga was concerned as he watched on from afar via his new Hearts TV subscription as the Englishman’s tenure began to crumble around him.
“I found out at the end of December that Hearts were interested,” he said.
“I was on vacation from Norway because we have a winter break there. And to be honest, I thought I was going to come to Scotland in the winter break when I found out about the interest. But I understood also it was a critical moment from the club. They were not doing that well.
“For me, it was actually probably a good thing that I didn't come that early, that I did this half season in Norway.
“But I immediately started watching Hearts TV, I started watching every game and figured out to learn a little bit more about the club, about the culture. And that helped me also, of course, to know that if I don't give 100 percent, these fans are going to kill me!
“But then of course it was a bit of a worry to me that it wouldn’t happen, because I talked with Neil Critchley at first and he told me that he liked me a lot. That was a worry before I talked with Derek (McInnes), with the coach.
“For me, of course, if a club like Hearts are interested in you and the coach really likes you a lot, it seems like it's also really, really good because, you know, OK, they're going to bet on me. But then when they get sacked and when the club didn't get into the European competitions, I'm like, is it still going to happen?
“I wouldn't say the coach has 100 percent control on signings, but the coach of course has the chance to say if I don't want this player, I don't want this player. I don't believe that the club would push the player if the coach didn't really believe in him.
“But when I got to talk with Derek, it was a really, really nice talk and easy talk, to be honest. He was just saying to be me and that he also trusted me. So, that was really important to know. Even though it wasn't a long conversation, it was just direct and great to know that this coach is also counting on me. Yeah, it was a relief.”
And after making quite the early impression, Hearts supporters will also be relieved that the club followed through on the deal to bring Braga to Edinburgh. Though, there has been one significant bump on the road since he got here, too.
“Yeah, the penalty miss against St. Mirren in the cup,” he said.
“I felt really bad for missing. I was really frustrated and that day I didn't talk with nobody.”
None of the old football cliches then about not getting too high when things are going well or too low when things aren’t going so well for Braga. No, instead, he freely admits to his devastation, and the Portuguese says that wearing his emotions on his sleeve is a vital part of getting the best from himself.
“I know a lot of people say that you shouldn't take it too serious, because then you'll go too deep on it,” he said.
“But I feel like if you care about it 100 percent and you really think about it and you know, ‘OK, I did this, I’m frustrated and this was a really bad day for me, but now I need to get better.’
“You need to go from eight to 80 really quick, if not, it's dangerous, so I understand why people say that you can get too low or too high. But for me personally, it's a good thing I would say, because you feel a little bit more that you made the mistake and that you need to compensate for that.
“That's just my point of view. Maybe it's not the right one, but it works for me. I feel like it's good in a way that you get frustrated.
“Two days after the St Mirren game we had training and it's also good to reset from there and try to prove that, ‘okay, that happened, that wasn't what was supposed to happen. That wasn't a normal thing for you. You need to prove that you can do different.’
“And especially when you have such a great opportunity that I'm having here at Hearts, I needed to prove that that wasn't my best, that I can do better.
“I really think that you should feel the loss and you should feel bad about it if you do something wrong and really think about it. But then also when you start again and you go for the new challenge, then you need to forget what happened and give more than 100 percent, because you need to compensate for the mistake. I feel that's important.
“But the support that I got from the guys and from the supporters was unexpected for me, because I know the cup hasn't been a good thing for them in a while.
“I felt that my teammates, the staff and the supporters were with me, even though I missed. And that was really important for me to know.”
It also helped that he climbed off the bench in the next game against Motherwell and bagged a brace to help Hearts peg back a three-goal deficit and earn an unlikely point, and he followed that up with the equaliser last time out against Livingston as Hearts mounted another comeback, taking his tally in all competitions to six goals from nine appearances and just 540 minutes of actual gametime.
Little wonder then that he feels in fine fettle, as all at Hearts do, as they travel to Ibrox this afternoon looking to defeat Rangers and leapfrog Celtic at the top of the Premiership. Braga hopes, right enough, that they don’t make it quite so difficult for themselves as they have of late.
“We've been doing well overall,” he said.
“We played against good teams already. We proved to ourselves and to others that we can do well.
“But we also proved to ourselves that we need to learn from the mistakes that we made in these previous games. I feel like if we do what we actually are best at doing, that is like going with 100 percent energy from the beginning, then we’ll do well.
“Lately, some games we just kind of slip from the beginning and that costs us a little bit going behind and maybe getting a little bit more stressed. So, it doesn't matter if it's Rangers or if it's any other team, if we go 100 percent from the beginning, we know that we can win. We know that we can achieve good results against any team in this Premiership.
“Of course, it's a big game, and the club we are playing is a big club. But right now, we are in a good position, and we just need to go there and play like we should play, and I think we'll be fine.”
If they do manage to win in Govan, anyone of a maroon persuasion who hasn’t yet been swept up in the Hearts title challenge hype – largely sparked by the bullish words of Tony Bloom after his Jamestown Analytics made their investment in the club – will surely find it difficult not to get at least a little carried away with themselves.
Something the players cannot afford to fall foul of, though, according to Braga.
“For football players, normally when you think too far from the present, then you can go wrong.
“Let's say we are thinking already about the title and everything. If we think like that, normally it happens to be wrong and it will finish bad. So, it's good to keep in our minds on the next game and the next game.
“This is what we want to do. We want to go as far as we can when it comes to points and if we do manage to surprise a few people, that would be amazing. But for that, we need to win against Rangers, and we need to win the next game and the next game.
“So right now, it's Rangers and we only care about that. If we start thinking about titles and everything right now, then that would be too arrogant, I would say. We didn't win anything yet. We have only started well.
“If we take our feet off the ground, then we may fall.”
There seems little chance that he will do that. His father, for one, would never allow it, as an insight into their relationship revealed just why he possesses the ferocious work-rate he is becoming renowned for, and why already, the Hearts fans are going gaga for Braga.
“Since I was young, I could score three goals in a game, but when I would go in the car after the game and if I didn't give 100 percent, my father would be talking to me about that, not the three goals,” he said.
“That stayed in my mind, that I need to give 100 percent of myself in every game, in every training.
“I feel for me, the energy is really important, because that changed the way that I play. If I don't play with energy, then it's not me anymore.
“Okay, I can miss chances, but if you play with energy, if you give everything from you to the team, it's difficult for somebody to point the finger at you.
“So, if I am playing like that and giving the energy and giving all I can give, even though I may miss, then I can sleep at night because I give 100 percent. I feel like if you do that, things will come, even maybe if it's not the first game, second, third game, but it will come for sure.
“While some guys have a lot of quality and way more quality than me, maybe they don't give everything of themselves. Maybe it's one, two, three good games, but then it's nothing more. So, I feel like if you give 100 percent, it will always come, sooner or later.
“It's what I feel is the truth and what has helped me to adapt so well.”
