End of Season Band 2 Bulletin: Porto Back On Top in Portugal

Harry Spinks with his best U23 players, best OOC options and Best XI from the Primeira Liga season

After three seasons without a title (their longest wait since Benfica won four consecutively from 13/14-16/17), FC Porto are the Champions of Portugal again.

In all honesty, with how they started the campaign, with a record-breaking first half of the season, it was never really much of a title race.

Porto spent 30 of the 34 gameweeks top of the pile, moving into first position in gameweek four, and didn’t surrender spot number one after that. It’s a hell of a long time to be the leader for, and The Dragons handled it extremely well; but what were the components that contributed to this title win?

Let’s start with the manager - Francisco Farioli. A year ago, Farioli had just departed Ajax, having let a nine-point lead slip with five games remaining. Porto fans would have been forgiven for having concerns about the latter stages of the season, but the young Italian manager ensured no dramatic end to this campaign, bringing the title back to Porto at his first attempt. One thing Farioli did bring with him from his Ajax days was a very strong defensive discipline, focused on formation organisation, and astute tactical flexibility.

A big contributor to this defensive record was shot stopper Diogo Costa (26), who finished the season with a save percentage of 80%. He and the Porto defense kept clean sheets in 19 games, conceding just 18 goals across the entire season. The Dragons scored considerably less goals (66) than both Sporting (89) and Benfica (74), and won 14 of their 28 wins by a one goal margin. It was a title built on solidity and nerve, rather than attacking flare. The injury of striker Samu (22) didn’t aid them in the goal scoring department, with their next top scorer on just eight goals - quite rare for a title winning team.