Blast from the past: Shock result at the Reboleira in 2005/06 as Estrela da Amadora beat FC Porto 2-1 | OneFootball

The Reboleira became one of the most iconic grounds of the 1990s. It was hard for any club to get a result there, even the Big Three. Porto, particularly, seemed to suffer more than most whenever they travelled down to Amadora, but the most painful match for the Dragons at the stadium came years later.

It also turned out to be a defining moment of a season that seemed destined to failure but eventually ended up in glory, planting the seed for what would become only the third time in Portugal that a club managed to win four leagues in a row.

Dutch disciplinarian at the helm

Co Adriaanse was not the most popular of football managers. He arrived at Porto in the summer of 2005, a tricky moment in the club’s recent history. Just a year before, Porto had been celebrating the best year of their history, after clinching the Champions League trophy alongside another league triumph. It soon turned into mayhem. First, it was Luigi del Neri, Pinto da Costa’s surprising choice to succeed José Mourinho, who didn’t even last the pre-season after insisting Porto played the same way his Chievo Verona did, with a back-three defensive line.

Then came Víctor Fernández, supposedly Pinto da Costa’s first choice, but who, in May, was still hoping to land the Spanish national team job, a position eventually handed to Luis Aragonés, who would turn Spain into the most powerful nation in the world by the end of the decade. Fernández came just after Rui Barros, who served as caretaker manager, had clinched the Super Cup against Benfica thanks to a brilliant Ricardo Quaresma solo goal. The former Sporting graduate was one of many high-profile signings, alongside the likes of Diego, Luis Fabiano, the returning Hélder Postiga and Giorgio Seitaridis, who had shone for Greece in the previous Euros.

Fernández managed to claim the club’s second Intercontinental cup, but poor results in the league meant he was sacked come wintertime, and his replacement, José Couceiro, didn’t fare much better. Porto finished the league second, behind league champions Benfica – the Lisbon club’s first win in eleven years – and four points clear of Sporting, who led the race until the very last month of the season. Looking to restore the club’s lost pride, Pinto da Costa looked abroad again after Del Neri and Fernández and decided to surprise everyone by bringing in Co Adriaanse.

Tactics changed and squad overhauled

The Dutch manager was a seasoned veteran who had already coached the likes of Willem II and Ajax and had just turned AZ Alkmaar into one of the most interesting sides in the Eredivisie. He was also a huge fan of the Dutch model of play made popular in the early 1970s, a high-tempo pressing game that moved swiftly between a 3-4-3 and a 4-3-3. It was a vertical attacking model that shifted greatly from Porto’s template of the previous season. The squad lacked the wingbacks or centre-backs that suited Adriaanse’s way of playing but they weren’t short of offensive options.

Things started a little shakily. The first to go was Luís Fabiano, who departed for Sevilla, while others like Claudio Pitbull, Leo Lima, Hugo Leal, Leandro Bonfim, Hélder Postiga, Areias and Maciel duly followed out of the door. Nuno Valente and Jorge Costa, two pillars of the Champions League winning side, were also sent away, the first sold to Everton and the club captain released to play in Belgium, after a clash with the new manager who deemed him too slow for his hight-tempo philosophy.

Pepe, who originally was meant to play in midfield, was converted to a centre-back position alongside Bruno Alves, Ricardo Costa and Pedro Emanuel. José Bosingwa and Raul Meireles, two late signings of the Mourinho era, became indispensable for Adriaanse alongside Lucho González, signed in the previous winter market, Lisandro López, Benni McCarthy and Ricardo Quaresma. Jorginho, brought from Vitória Setúbal, and Helton, who had shone at Leiria for several seasons, were also low-profile but decisive signings in the transfer market, as was the arrival of the promising Brazilian starlet Anderson, one of the players of the season.

Wildly inconsistent

Porto began the season with a 1-0 win against Estrela da Amadora at home, but a loss at Ibrox Park and a draw against Braga sounded the alarm. Things got worse when the unknown Artmedia from Slovakia came to Dragão to blast the Portuguese side, practically putting an end to their European campaign. Weeks later, Porto travelled to Lisbon and got hammered by Benfica with Nuno Gomes scoring a brace and Bruno Alves getting a double yellow card. Adriaanse went to Estádio da Luz with a highly offensive side, with Brazilians Ibson and Jorginho flanking Lucho, and Lisandro and Alan playing as wingers with Benni McCarthy in the middle, and the likes of Quaresma, Diego and Paulo Assunção staying on the bench.

Draws against Rangers, Artmedia, Vitória Setubal and Sporting and another defeat at Inter, gave the idea that this Porto side were extremely fragile and often drifted between a highly entertaining side and a despairing one. Still, after the goalless draw at home against Sporting, five consecutive league wins left them at the top of the league table with 40 points, six clear of Benfica and Nacional, eight in front of Braga and already ten above the Lions. They were also out of the Champions League last sixteen for the first time in years, a blow to the club’s international reputation recently well earned. Then came the trip to Amadora.

Toni Conceição impresses in Amadora

The Estrela da Amadora starting XI and substitutes

Estrela, in contrast to Porto, were having a comfortable season. Sitting eleventh, eight points above the drop, the Reboleira side were expecting to finish the campaign without too much to be worried about. Coached by Toni Conceição, the side included some veterans of the Portuguese league like Paulo Lopes, Hugo Carreira, Manu, Rui Duarte and Rui Borges, and promising players, mainly from Brazil, such as Coutinho and Maurício. They didn’t play the prettiest of football, but they were solid and hard to defeat.

On that cold mid-January night, Conceição picked is usual best eleven, with Lopes flanked by Tony, Maurício, Carreira and Emerson in defence, while Rui Borges and Jordão supported Coutinho in midfield, with Simões, Semedo and Manu responsible for the attacking duties. Adriaanse, on the other hand, kept his trust in Vítor Baía, now club captain with Costa gone, with Ricardo Costa, Pepe, Pedro Emanuel and Marek Cech in defence. Paulo Assunção played alongside Lucho and Jorginho while Diego accompanied Lisandro and Quaresma in the front three attacking line.

The FC Porto starting XI and substitutes

Early two-goal salvo stuns Porto

The match started in typical fashion. Porto wanted the ball and tried to press high, but usually misfired passes and allowed Estrela to create their own chances. It was as if both sides were playing cat and mouse, only Porto never truly seemed to be as feline as they should have been, particularly in the first twenty minutes. Then, against the run of play, Estrela scored the first. Maurício took advantage of a mistake by Vítor Baía to put Estrela in front. It wasn’t the first time the veteran goalkeeper made a mess of himself. Against Benfica, he was beaten poorly by a long-range shot from Nuno Gomes, and only ten minutes later, he would be again on the wrong side of events as Coutinho netted a second for the home side.

Without really knowing how, the Amadora crowd was celebrating like maniacs what looked like the most improbable of wins. At half-time, Adriaanse decided to shake things up in despair and made three substitutions. Off went Quaresma and Jorginho, in came Alan and Ivanildo. The Brazilian winger was expected to bring more attacking prowess, while Ivanildo was a promising player from the youth setup who never truly performed to expectations. Also, Hugo Almeida came in for Pedro Emanuel, with Porto now playing with a back three that included Pepe, Ricardo Costa and Cech, with Diego moving alongside Lucho and Assunção, followed by a four-man frontline.

Hosts shut the door

Lucho González, today back at Porto as Francesco Farioli’s assistant coach, pulled a goal back for Porto but it was not enough to avoid defeat.

It was a desperate attempt to change things around, and Porto started to pepper Lopes’ goal with successive shots that never really posed any danger. On the hour, Lucho got one back, and for a moment it seemed that Porto still had it in them to turn things around. With half an hour to play, it was up for grabs, but Conceição managed the game tightly. On came Anselmo for Rui Borges, first, and then veteran Rui Duarte replaced Emerson. Porto’s previously fresh legs were starting to fail, and with no substitutions left, fuel seemed to have run out too soon. While Estrela held on, the Dragons seemed hapless and never got the goal they were hoping for, even if in the final instants Lisandro and Almeida had clear opportunities that ended up going nowhere.

When the match ended, Porto had fallen to their second defeat in the league, in 18 matches, and with Benfica and Braga winning – the Minho boys by beating Sporting 3-2 at home – it meant their lead was cut to just three points with sixteen games to play. In terms of the championship race, it was game on.

Baía’s brilliant career ended by Estrela

The first consequence of the Reboleira match was the effective ending of Vítor Baía’s legendary career. The number 99 was benched mercilessly and Helton took his place in goal. The only matches Baía played for the following season and a half were when the Brazilian was unavailable. The iconic goalkeeper, who had replaced the mythical Polish stopper Josefz Mlynazyck when he was still a teenager, had come back from a poor spell in Barcelona, and was by then already the player with most trophies to his name in the history of the game, was out of the club just as Jorge Costa had been in the previous summer.

With Helton also came Adriaanse’s idea of playing regularly with a back three, often going for a 3-4-3, which sometimes even turned into a 3-3-4 depending on the rivals. At first, it didn’t seem to go too well. After beating Naval, draws against Rio Ave and Braga, proved there was still some work to do, but, surprisingly, Adriaanse benefited from a disastrous spell for Benfica, who failed not only to capitalise on Porto’s missteps, but were also shoved aside by a resurgent Sporting under Paulo Bento. By round 24, with ten games to go, a Porto home defeat against Benfica allowed Sporting to put themselves just two points behind the league leaders, with Braga coming third, four points behind the top, and Benfica in fourth place, five points adrift from the Dragons.

An attack by the Porto ultras on Adriaanse after the draw against Rio Ave shook things up, and until the end of the season, Porto never lost again, conceding only a draw against Boavista on the last day of the season. By then, they had already won at Alvalade, with a sole Jorginho goal, and were effectively crowned league champions with two matches to spare, in Penafiel. They also managed to beat Sporting in the Cup semifinal on penalties to later claim the trophy in a final played against Vitória FC in mid-May.

Adriaanse wins double… and is shown the door

Few were ready to concede that the shifts made by Adriaanse after the Amadora debacle would end up having such a colossal impact on the league, the Dragons ending up seven points ahead of Sporting and twelve of Benfica. However, Adriaanse’s strong character and his insistence on bringing in players that he knew from the Dutch league, such as striker Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, caused unrest in Porto’s camp, and the manager was gone by the following campaign’s pre-season.

Jesualdo Ferreira, who had guided Braga in the previous seasons and had just signed for Boavista, was quickly called in to follow in his footsteps and over the next three years he would guide Porto to their famous second Tetra.

Estrela, on the other hand, finished the league campaign in a brilliant ninth place, a recognition of Toni Conceição’s brilliant effort, a result they somehow managed to repeat the following campaign, with a squad now coached by Daúto Faquirá. A period of solace in the turbulent recent history of the Amadora side at a time when Porto, albeit unbeknownst to so many, were starting to create another winning dynasty under the shadow of the new Dragon stadium.