Maxi Pereira: “FC Porto were deserved winners, they had a superb year” | OneFootball

In an interview with the newspaper “OJOGO”, Maxi Pereira sees FC Porto’s title as an achievement that restores a sense of normality to a club used to winning. In the view of the former Uruguayan full-back, the team responded to a period of change with the right decisions, identity on the pitch, and a collective idea above individual talent. In the final assessment, he left no room for doubt and assured: “They were deserved winners, they had a spectacular year.”

Champion with Porto in 2017/18, after swapping Benfica for FC Porto, Maxi Pereira now interprets this new triumph from the standpoint of an emotional bond he says he still has with the club and the city. The common thread in his words is clear: amid the turbulence of transition and the constant demands from the stands, the title appears as the reward for a process that brought the Dragão back into line with its own identity.

Faced with the idea of an FC Porto that needed to become champions again, Maxi Pereira went back to the context of change and spoke of a cycle that, in his view, made early difficulties inevitable.

“The truth is that FC Porto had deserved this title for some time. It was a period of change, which made things more complicated. First, with the departure of the dear and beloved Pinto da Costa, another president came in, and you could tell it was going to be difficult,” he said. “Then the coach changed too, with Sérgio Conceição no longer there, someone who carried the mystique and the Porto spirit. There were many changes, also among the players, so it was always going to be difficult to return to being a calm club riding a wave of titles, which is what the fans want and demand most, no matter who is in charge. Personally, I was eager for that to happen, because of all the affection I received from the fans and the city. I’m happy, and my family is too; we all identify with FC Porto.”

There is more here than nostalgia or mere club sympathy. Maxi describes a club rebuilding itself from within, trying to regain stability without losing the historic pressure to win, and he also places himself in that picture, as someone who still feels the emotional weight of the badge.

When the conversation turned to the team’s revival and the signings made for the season, the former Uruguay international focused less on names and more on the consistency between recruitment and the playing idea.

“I feel they strengthened well, with players of great intensity; I’m not talking about names or market value. They were players who showed they identified with this coach’s way of playing,” he stressed. “That was the most important thing, seeing the manager’s intensity reflected on the pitch. He brought in the right men, and they adapted very well. In the first game you could already see a tactically organised team, defensively aligned, with everyone capable of defending. The team’s mentality made us think of that aggressive and dynamic FC Porto of other times. They were deserved winners, they had a spectacular year.”

In Maxi Pereira’s view, the title was built less on isolated brilliance and more on the solidity of a team with recognisable traits from early on. His praise for the dynamism, organisation and aggressiveness paints precisely the image of an FC Porto that once again looked like itself.

Asked about the coach’s influence on the triumph, Maxi refused to turn the season into a story of individual protagonists and preferred to highlight the strength of the collective idea, while still pointing to the top of the structure.

“I watched quite a lot of games and I liked the way they approached them. There wasn’t one player standing out; the team was the star. The coach conveyed that and deserves a lot of credit,” he explained. “But I would say the greatest credit goes to the president, who placed his faith in a coach who, after losing the Dutch league, had left doubts and the fans didn’t know what to expect. The president showed confidence by backing this coach and a group of players, with all the choices being the right ones.”

In the end, what remains is a hierarchy of merit that says a lot about the way Maxi Pereira viewed the season: the team as the main face of it, the coach as the one who transmitted a clear identity, and André Villas-Boas as the decision-maker who backed the project. It is a view of triumph built on conviction, calculated risk and, above all, consistency.

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