Whilst it’s still fresh in the memory I’ll start with Braga-Benfica. What a wonderful double save by Matheus right at the end. I really thought the rebound shot was going to go in. He also made that good save where he just tipped it over the bar, a fantastic performance by him. A very stop-start and fiery game which made it difficult for Benfica to play football, pretty dirty tactics by Braga really. Similar to how Boavista played against you earlier this season, but obviously the difference was you were able to hold onto your lead in that game.
Looking at the second goal I can’t help but feel Artur has to take some blame for it. To me it looks like he thought that was going wide, not only did he go down terribly slow but he seemed to not bother to put his arms out at full stretch – like he thought the ball was going to roll wide. A lovely finish though. I didn’t expect him to shoot so maybe that did take Artur by a bit of a surprise as well but watching it again and it just looks like a really lazy attempt to save the ball.
Putting their fieriness aside Braga were really up for it though. Quite a few of their attacks looked pretty dangerous. I’m still such a fan of Rafa, I think it grows each time I watch him. I would absolutely love him to be wearing the Porto kit. He just added that pace and made a couple of great runs too. And I know you lost but if it’s any consolation that’s another goal for Talisca. Last season at Bahia he was a good guy to watch but I honestly never expected him to score this amount of goals already. He’s surprised me!
Sporting-Maritimo. Oooh Maritimo! This was another really good game to watch today. I gave up on any hope of a comeback after going 3-0 down. Miraculously they clawed it back to 3-2. Maazou reminds me of last seasons Derley for Maritimo with how important he is for scoring their goals. I'm pretty surprised by him too because at Guimarães last season I saw very little in Maazou that would make me think he was capable of scoring goals. Nice goal by Fredy Montero in that game as well.
I’ve only managed to catch our highlights vs Arouca but it looked like we were pretty comfortable throughout. It was actually quite refreshing to see just one change in the squad by Lopetegui from the CL game, he actually decided to stick with starting with Quintero which needs to continue!
As for the CL, it really has been a disaster for you lot. I think you’ll need a bit of a miracle to progress any further but it’s certainly a must win in the next game if you want a chance of making it into the Europa League!
Felt so sorry for Sporting, mad decision for the penalty. Such a shame and like you I’m really hoping they will beat Schalke when they visit the Alvalade.
I’ve gone on enough as it is so I’ll conveniently skip past and not mention the Taça de Portugal!