Rodrigo Mora at FC Porto should be a must-have | OneFootball

FC Porto will travel on Sunday, at 3:30 pm (Portugal mainland time), to Estádio da Madeira to face Nacional, in a match for the 22nd round of the Primeira Liga, in which Francesco Farioli will, inevitably, have to ‘improvise’, due to the succession of setbacks affecting the main squad.

Nehuén Pérez, Jakub Kiwior, Martim Fernandes, Luuk de Jong, Samu Aghehowa (all injured), Francisco Moura and William Gomes (both suspended) are “out of the picture”, so, for Rui Quinta, former assistant coach of the Dragons during the ‘Vítor Pereira era’, Rodrigo Mora should be a mandatory option.

“If there is a player at FC Porto capable of, in the smallest space, finding a way out so the team can succeed, that player is Rodrigo Mora,” said the current coach of South Korea’s Chungbuk Cheongju, in statements to the ‘Bola Branca’ program on Rádio Renascença.

“I’m not talking about players who run, but players who find spaces, who invent plays, who see things others can’t see in fractions of a second—there aren’t many. For me, it should be a constitutional requirement that players of this quality should always be in the game, in spaces that favor them,” he added.

Rui Quinta admitted that the trip to Choupana could be “a good opportunity for Deniz Gul to calm down and better understand the moments, the timings, and the way he connects with what the game demands.” Even so, he did not rule out that the replacement for Samu Aghehowa could be the winter signing Terem Moffi.

“Sometimes, it’s also in these moments that situations arise with players who are not very well known, who are not often referenced, and they can cause some surprise. The fact that an unknown player appears can also be a factor of some destabilization for the opposing team,” he reflected.

“FC Porto knows perfectly well that as long as they win their games, there’s no need to worry about who’s coming from behind”

To conclude, the 65-year-old coach pointed to FC Porto as the favorite for the national title, despite having lost five points in the last two rounds, allowing second-placed Sporting to reduce the gap to four points from the top spot.

“For a team that wants to be champion, every game is high risk, but we can also think that the next game is an opportunity to show a sign of revolt, that we are wounded, that we want to demonstrate our quality and, at the same time, assert our position on the path that has kept us in first place,” he said.

“FC Porto knows perfectly well that as long as they win their games, there’s no need to worry about who’s coming from behind, so the problem lies with us, and the solution to the problem is always with us,” concluded the Minho native, whose career includes stints at Penafiel, Paços de Ferreira, Paredes, Aliados Lordelo, Gil Vicente, Vizela, Sporting de Espinho, Lusitânia de Lourosa, Salgueiros, and Flamengo.

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