Diogo Costa reaches 100th clean sheet for FC Porto | OneFootball

The monumental save that Diogo Costa made with his left leg at 68″ in the match against V. Guimarães – by stopping a fatal header from Lebedenko – not only preserved the scoreless draw at that time (which Alan Varela would eventually break near the end), but also allowed the Porto captain to reach a remarkable milestone in his career: it was the 100th match in which he did not concede a goal for FC Porto's main team (134 in total in his career). In the club's history, only three other goalkeepers have achieved such a feat: Zé Beto, Vítor Baía, and Helton.

In the current championship alone, he already has 14 “clean sheets” in 18 rounds, an impressive number, especially when compared to last season, when FC Porto only recorded 16 games without conceding goals throughout the entire competition – that is, as he starts the second half of the season, he is practically matching that total. Across all competitions, there are 17 matches without conceding goals, placing him ahead of David Raya (Arsenal) and Trubin (Benfica), who have 16. No other goalkeeper in the major leagues has a similar record. “Diogo Costa was impeccable. It's part of the game, and having one of the best goalkeepers in the world is a source of pride for us. We prefer him to play only with his feet, but sometimes he needs to defend. He was very brave in the air, and in games like this, with many duels, with a lot of ‘electricity’, it's very important to have a goalkeeper who helps win games,” praised Francesco Farioli.

The count started precisely at his debut, against Santa Clara, for the League Cup, on September 25, 2019. Six years later, Diogo reaches the round mark against V. Guimarães, just as Helton did in March 2011, with Villas-Boas at the helm. It should be remembered that Vítor Baía reached the hundred against Braga, on October 4, 1992, and Zé Beto against Benfica, on October 23, 1988.

There is an old saying that those who do not concede goals are closer to winning, and Diogo Costa's numbers corroborate this idea: he emerged victorious in 93 of the matches in which he kept his goal untouched.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.