João Brandão: "To beat Oliveirense, we need to be at our very best" | OneFootball

After the trip to Madeira and the visit to the home of league leaders CS Marítimo, FC Porto B returns home for the 26th round of the Segunda Liga, where they host UD Oliveirense at the CTFD Jorge Costa (Monday, 6:45 pm, Porto Canal).

Coach João Brandão referred to a “competent” opponent who “has changed a lot in terms of their dynamics” since the arrival of their new coach, but emphasized that the Dragons aim to “create a lot” and “control and dominate the game, as these are different things.” Forward Tiago Andrade, who earlier this week accompanied the first team to Stuttgart, assured that the Porto squad has been “working well” to deliver “a great response” and return “to winning ways.” Before this match, FC Porto B sits in eighth place with 37 points, while UD Oliveirense is in 17th, with 26.

UD Oliveirense“UD Oliveirense is a competent team and in recent games has changed a lot in terms of their dynamics. The arrival of the new coach has brought some new dynamics offensively and also changed the defensive structure, so we have found it somewhat difficult to prepare for the game with these new dynamics. Above all, we focus on ourselves and that is the main challenge for this match. We look at what we need to improve and what we need to bring to the game, whether with or without the ball. It will be a very difficult match, like all the others in the Segunda Liga. We will face a team with a favorable history, including at Olival, which shows just how tough it is to play against this opponent. We need to be at our best to win this game.”

Defeat in Oliveira de Azeméis in the first round“What we take from that game is that it was not a good performance from us. It was a match where we were not good in our offensive dynamics, we created little and allowed a lot. Now we want a game in the opposite direction, we want to create a lot, we want to control and dominate the game, as these are different things. For that, we need to be very solid defensively. The secret of this Segunda Liga is to never allow too many transitions for the opponent and to be very balanced, but also to have the ability to accelerate in offensive moments.”

Individual awards come from collective work“In football or any team sport, individual awards will always be recognition of the team’s ability. It was thanks to the collective effort that these nominations came about. It is a great satisfaction to see the recognition of the work and evolution that Gonçalo [Sousa] has shown, as well as the growth and development that Gabriel [Brás] has had. For two consecutive months, our young players have been awarded. The greatest victory of all was seeing André Miranda make his debut for the first team and seeing many of our players being called up for the main squad’s matches. That is the greatest recognition a coach of FC Porto B can have, always keeping in mind the main goal, which is to create the best conditions and have the best training proposals to foster all this ambition and turn dreams into reality.”

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