FC Porto’s defensive wall really was their best attack | OneFootball

FC Porto’s path to winning the title was built on a defensive solidity that even led Farioli’s side to be labelled pragmatic. One of football’s oldest maxims says that the best attack is defense, and Porto took that literally: a team that does not concede is always closer to taking all three points, and FC Porto went unbeaten without conceding in 21 of the 34 league rounds, a record unmatched among Europe’s major leagues.

The teams that come closest to those numbers are two-time European champion PSG and Olympiacos, both with 18 clean sheets, although the Greeks did not even win their domestic title. The team from Piraeus, it should be noted, was the only one to concede fewer goals than Porto: 17, although they fall slightly behind on average, since they played only 32 matches, two fewer than the Portuguese champions.

In the 21 league matches in which FC Porto did not concede, Diogo Costa was always in goal and only failed to complete the full 90 minutes in two of them (Aves SAD and Santa Clara, both at the Dragão). This means he comfortably surpassed his previous record, which had been 16 league matches without conceding a goal.

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