Derby exposes lack of firepower, but Farioli keeps FC Porto competitive | OneFootball

It is now virtually a consensus among Porto circles that Francesco Farioli has been finding solutions one after another and masking FC Porto’s attacking weaknesses ever since the team first lost Luuk de Jong and then Samu. Faced with that scenario, the Italian coach was forced to reshuffle the team, share out responsibilities and look for answers where the squad already seemed to have no alternatives left, without that preventing FC Porto from remaining competitive right up to the very last moment of the season.

The clássico against Sporting, in the second leg of the Taça semi-final, was the latest illustration of that resilience. Terem Moffi, introduced only for the final 20 minutes, could have ended the match as the main figure: almost with the last touch of the game, he forced Rui Silva into a desperate save to deny the goal that would have taken the tie into extra time and kept alive the possibility of a Porto comeback, even while down to 10 men.

However, on the other side of the attack, an almost contradictory case remains: Deniz Gul. After providing the decisive assist for Gabri Veiga’s goal against Tondela, the Turkish international still has not established a steady relationship with opposing goalkeepers and has now gone 18 straight matches without scoring, despite having enjoyed more minutes recently. His last goal dates back to 22 January, against Viktoria Plzen in the Europa League, and in the league you have to go back to 27 October and the decisive goal in Moreira de Cónegos (2-1) to find his most recent appearance on the scoresheet.

The comparison with Samu is inevitable and even harsher. The Spanish striker was FC Porto’s main attacking pillar, with 20 goals and one assist in all competitions, 13 of those goals in the league, until injury forced him off at half-time in the 10 February clássico against Sporting at the Dragão, following a sprain to his right knee that was later confirmed as a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Averaging more than 0.7 goals per game, he was the most influential player in the blue-and-white attack.

Luuk de Jong had also been a solution, albeit briefly and marked by misfortune. The Dutchman, signed in the summer of 2025, left the Dragão with just 1 goal in six official matches, before two consecutive injuries and surgery ruled him out of the team for good.

Against Sporting, Deniz Gul had a quiet game in attacking terms, with only two shots, one wide and the other blocked, without a single effort on target. Under heavy pressure from Diomande, he touched the ball only 10 times and struggled to get into the game, failing to create chances or make the most of his dribbling. In passing, he posted acceptable accuracy (3 out of 4, 75%), though with little verticality and almost always playing backwards. Defensively, he won only one of the seven duels he contested and was beaten on two occasions in one-on-one situations, in an overall display of limited influence in the clássico.

Terem Moffi came on with 20 minutes to go and still was the FC Porto player who came closest to scoring in the final move, when he met a corner with a powerful header that was stopped by an extraordinary save from Rui Silva. In his short time on the pitch, he had two shots, one of them on target, and seven touches of the ball, making his mark in the Dragons’ most dangerous moment of the match.

Despite his limited playing time, the Nigerian international showed some efficiency in what little he did: he completed three of his four passes, won three of his five duels and came out on top in two of his three aerial battles, numbers that help explain his strong presence in the decisive play. He also finished the clássico with one shot off target and only one loss of possession, in a brief but relevant display because of the chance created right at the death.

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