Bernardo Ribeiro hits out at Farioli: “Porto didn’t crush Sporting” | OneFootball

With sharp sarcasm, Bernardo Ribeiro, Record’s director, set out to try to dismantle Francesco Farioli’s remarks piece by piece after FC Porto’s elimination from the Portuguese Cup. The result was an intervention that, stripped of its irony, would read like statements from a Sporting supporters’ group member.

The trigger was Farioli’s claim that Porto “crushed Sporting on every level.” For Bernardo Ribeiro, who called it “the most dishonest analysis I’ve seen from the big three this year,” the Italian coach’s speech was nothing more than a script prepared by the club’s hierarchy. “Farioli could also think a little more for himself,” he shot back.

Throughout his intervention, Bernardo Ribeiro used an ironic tone to try to ridicule Porto’s narrative. When he said that “this two-legged tie is a good way of realizing that Sporting controls refereeing in Portugal,” he was not endorsing that thesis – he was mocking it, dismantling it with the match statistics: possession, big chances, and a Rui Silva who “saved Sporting.”

He left this message: “You have to be shameless to come out and say that FC Porto crushed Sporting on every level.” And he concluded, with irony: “If they crushed them, it was with their studs on the legs of Sporting’s players.”

Regardless of the tone he chose, in this intervention Bernardo Ribeiro did the job that Sporting should have done. He ignored the context of the tie, downplayed the blue-and-white dominance on the pitch, and attacked Porto’s coach with a virulence that contrasts with the usual leniency when the targets are from Alvalade.

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