Against Vitória, FC Porto lived and died of disorder

On Monday, against Vitória de Guimarães, FC Porto scored the goal through talent and deliberate disorder. But they also conceded due to that same disorder, at a stage that nothing could have predicted and which penalizes a team incapable of controlling the game with the ball.

FC Porto - Vitoria SC Live Score

The match ended in a 1-1 draw in the I Liga, with the "dragons" wasting the chance to close in on Sporting and Benfica's lead. And the draw has some bearing on the quality of Vitória's chances, even though the game was dominated overall by FC Porto.

For this game, Martín Anselmi designed new things. The game system did not seem particularly important, since the point of order was the constant dynamics – both in the ball release and in the movements up front.

In the build-up, Tomás Pérez, making his debut as a starter, alternated between the central midfield position, watching the game from the front, and a position in midfield, alongside Varela.

There were no clear positions up front either. But the average player positioning map almost always showed a 3x3x4, with Pérez between the centre-backs, Mora and Fábio Vieira as inside midfielders and Moura and Borges projected as full-backs who were wingers. Then, Pepê played behind Namaso – until he got injured half an hour in, at which point Samu came on and Namaso dropped back a few metres.

Namaso between the lines

In terms of attacking designs, the idea was almost always the same. With Fábio Vieira, Varela and Mora watching the game from the front, the solution was for one of the attacking players to provide frontal support and try to release the ball with the first/second touch.

And this mobility allowed the idea to vary from player to player: At 18', Namaso provided frontal support to Fábio Vieira, passing the ball to Varela to pass to Mora. At 21', Borges provided frontal support to Pérez and passed the ball to Varela to pass to Pepê. At 33', Namaso provided frontal support to release Moura. At 36', Pérez found Namaso in this repeated movement, in a play to pass to Samu. At 41', Samu requested the ball in support, passing it to Varela, who passed Namaso into space – the goal was disallowed for offside. And at 50', an opportunity was created in a free kick after another frontal support from Namaso, with a pass from Pérez, and a first touch to Mora.

This description highlights six moments, always with the same type of idea: someone in frontal support, dragging a central player and touching the ball first, and the player who received the ball facing the game stretched into space for another player who broke through the space left empty by the central player who had fallen into the trap. Without any special danger, however.

This exhaustive repetition highlighted a clear idea, but also some lack of variety: there was little play on the wings, for example, and little presence in the area for crosses.

Short victory

There has been little talk about Vitória because Vitória did little or nothing. Offensively, they were unable to create anything, despite the large amount of free space they had – FC Porto pressed very high, forcing Vitória to shoot long and leaving three against three at the back, requiring the defenders to “smother” the aerial duel.

In the 53rd minute, FC Porto's tactical variability caused problems. The team came out of the break defending with four players, with Zé Pedro at full-back and Pérez at centre-back, but the young midfielder forgot which position he was occupying (it was no longer a hybrid position) and went after a midfielder when he had Nélson Oliveira behind him. The Portuguese player was released, Zé Pedro was open and Oliveira finished – fortunately for FC Porto, there was an offside flag.

Otávio saved Diogo Costa shortly afterwards, from a corner that could have resulted in a goal, and FC Porto also scored a goal shortly after.

In the 68th minute, with many players inside Vitória's box, Fábio Vieira was able to get the ball on the right wing, pull it inside and shoot in a curling shot. Curiously, this was a phase in which Vitória seemed to be playing better, with more arrivals into the box, even if the moves were somewhat haphazard.

At a stage where there was no victory in the game, the draw arrived. FC Porto's disarray was once again fatal in defense, with the team strangely balanced in attack five minutes from the end and in a moment of offensive set piece. There was a lost ball in the midfield and Embaló finished alone.