Farioli: “Disallowed goals could have been a turning point, but…” | OneFootball

FC Porto beat Arouca 2-0 at the Estádio do Dragão and moved clear at the top of the league. Despite his satisfaction with the result, Francesco Farioli stressed that the season is still in its early stages.

“Lots of chances. We were patient in the first half while Arouca stayed very compact. It took us a little while to find our rhythm, but after that, including in the second half, we had many very good moments. Before Gabri’s goal, we tried everything, we had goal[s] disallowed and that could have been a turning point, but the team showed maturity and it was a very important result. A great win in front of our fans, who once again gave us a boost,” he began by saying in an interview with Sport TV.

The Italian coach also highlighted the opposition’s organisation, which made life difficult for Porto, and said it was necessary to wait for the ideal opportunity to break the deadlock. Farioli also praised Arouca’s goalkeeper and explained the substitution of Bednarek in the 88th minute.

“Today was one of those games where teams show us a lot of respect. They come organised, without conceding anything, they usually like to press aggressively and today they dropped very deep to try to disrupt our game. It’s a situation where you can open up the game or be patient and wait for the right moment. An important result against a team that had scored 5 and conceded 0 up to today. It wasn’t an easy game,” he added, praising the opposing goalkeeper and explaining the situation with Bednarek, who went off in the 88th minute.

“You have to congratulate him and wait for the right moment to score. Great saves. Bednarek? He felt a bit of pain in his calf, so we’ll have to see,” he said, without wanting to get ahead of himself about a possible title defence.

Farioli reiterated that FC Porto will still face many obstacles ahead and praised the consistency the team has shown at the start of the season.

“We’re only at the beginning, and we’ll face many challenges ahead. Of course, it was important to start with this run of wins, because we know what this league is like — every game is difficult. The importance of being consistent, mature and solid... today we showed it again with a great performance on the pitch. This anger and hunger to do more, more and more... and the fans are with us,” he concluded.

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