Jorge Amaral on Farioli's second year at Porto: “A plan B matters” | OneFootball

One year after Francesco Farioli arrived at FC Porto, Jorge Amaral sees the upcoming season as a test of the ability to repeat and refine. The former goalkeeper views a second straight title as the main driving force, warns that the Champions League will require a different kind of management, and points to a clear need for tactical evolution: more solutions, more nuances, more unpredictability. At its core, the idea is summed up in a line that runs through the entire reflection: “Having a plan B is important.”

As Farioli marks his first year in charge of FC Porto, Jorge Amaral’s analysis starts from one certainty and moves toward one demand. The Italian coach, champion in 2025/26, won people over with the way he embraced the club’s competitive identity; now the bar is higher, not only because of what has already been achieved, but because of what now has to be confirmed.

Asked about the motivation of a team that no longer starts from the wounded pride of the previous season, Amaral went straight to the point and rejected the idea of any competitive void. For the former goalkeeper, sustaining success is, in itself, a challenge strong enough.

“Last season, Farioli managed to capture Porto’s pride and DNA, the idea of breaking rather than bending. This year, I don’t think there can be any greater motivation than continuing that work, than winning back-to-back titles,” he said. “Then there’s the team’s development, individually and collectively. Basically, it will be about confirming everything that was done, proving that what was done was done well, was worth it, and has continuity.”

In this reading, there is an idea of constant validation. Winning once can be a crowning achievement; repeating it, in Amaral’s view, will be the definitive proof that the path followed by Farioli has consistency and not just immediate impact.

When the topic shifted to balancing the league and the Champions League, the tone became more cautious. Amaral immediately acknowledged that the competitive context is now different and that it requires a finer tuning of resources.

“I don’t believe that in the Champions League that management can be done in the same way,” he said. “Last year the main target was the league, but now FC Porto are already champions and are in the Champions League, a competition with a much higher level of difficulty and visibility, so we want to see the best version of the team. For that, a more balanced squad will be needed and then, even without such radical rotation as last year, he can change a few pieces here and there to keep the team fresh and strong on all fronts.”

The emphasis is on squad depth and balance. Without arguing for a break from the previous rotation model, Amaral makes it clear that this new competitive level will require a different kind of flexibility, less extreme and more surgical.

Even so, it was on the tactical level that the reflection gained the most depth. Faced with a team very faithful to its model and already studied by its opponents, Amaral pointed to the convenience of adding alternatives without dismantling the structure that worked.

“Having a plan B is important. This team kept winning, and only rarely needed to resort to plan B because plan A worked very well,” he explained. “Farioli was very rational, he has a very well-drilled system, all the players knew what to do on the pitch, and the substitutions were always like-for-like, never to change the model. But I think it’s important for that to happen.”

The former goalkeeper also stressed that this change does not necessarily have to be a revolution.

“André Silva, for example, is a different kind of number 9 from the others they had, and that can help create different nuances, at least in attack. Even so, it seems to me that FC Porto’s plan B will always be a slightly different plan A.”

The wording is revealing: Amaral is not asking Farioli to move away from his core principles, but to broaden them. In other words, not a second life for the team, but different versions of the same identity, enough to keep it competitive when the context tightens.

At the close of the analysis, the conversation moved down to the concrete issue of squad building. And there Amaral outlined a map of needs and priorities, between missing profiles and alternatives he considers urgent.

“I’d say they need a more mobile strikաer, different from André Silva and Samu, with more technical ability, someone who can play one-on-one, combine with others, and play off another strikաer. Then a left-back; as much as I like Zaidu, I think it’s urgent to find another solution,” he said. “In midfield, someone could come in for Alan Varela’s role and, above all, a player who can give Froholdt a rest, as Fofana has done since January. The wingers are in good shape, although it’s important that Borja does better than he did last season to be a good alternative to Pietuszewski. It’s a balanced team with quality, but good players are always welcome.”

More than structural criticism, the picture is of a squad that, in Amaral’s eyes, needs fine-tuning to cope with the higher demands. The foundation is there; what is missing, he suggests, are the pieces that will allow Farioli to maintain the team’s identity without becoming hostage to it.

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