FC Porto beat Oliveirense 4-3 and reach the semi-finals | OneFootball

The newly crowned European champions remained calm and confident, needing no third game as they went to Oliveirense’s home ground and secured their place in the semi-finals with a 3-4 win, following last Saturday’s clear 7-1 triumph at the Dragão Arena.

Hélder Nunes’s absence was felt more on Porto’s side than Lucas Martínez’s was in the home team, in a balanced match with a very intense start. Just before the second minute, João Souto opened the scoring, but shortly afterwards he ended up harming his team by being punished with a double blue card, leaving them shorthanded for four minutes. Far too long, and the dragons made the most of it to turn the game around, first through Carlo Di Benedetto and then Gonçalo Alves. But the comeback did not stop there: the French forward also made it 1-3 and forced Oliveirense to raise the tempo, tighten their man-marking, and push for a recovery. From the second rebound of a penalty, João Souto pulled one back in the 14th minute and, a minute later, restored parity.

FC Porto started the second half very strongly and almost completely dominated the opening five minutes, with Bernardo Mendes preserving the draw and giving confidence to the team, who hit Xavi Malián’s post in the 42nd minute. Even so, the real blow came with Gonçalo Alves’s goal, which made it 3-4. The hosts tried at least to take the game into extra time, took off their goalkeeper in the final minute and a half, but without success, as Porto held firm and resisted the pressure effectively.

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