António Silva: Porto didn’t deserve win after another 0-0 at Dragão | OneFootball

At the end of the elimination against FC Porto, Benfica left the field with a statement that once again put the merit of the dragons into question. António Silva was the voice of this perspective: “There was a team today that deserved to go through, I think it was us.” A strong statement, supported by the red team's performance, but it clashes with an undeniable fact of the season: in two visits to Estádio do Dragão, Benfica failed to score a single goal.

Football is decided by effectiveness. And it is precisely here that the narrative of “we didn’t deserve to lose” begins to lose strength. Benfica once again left Dragão without scoring, repeating the outcome of the league match. Two classics on the same stage, two games without any goals scored. Regardless of offensive volume, possession, or territoriality, the inability to turn dominance into effective finishing inevitably weighs on the overall assessment.

António Silva highlighted the goal conceded from a set piece as an episode of the game — “it’s football” — and not as a reflection of Porto's superiority. Even so, this detail ends up reinforcing a trend: FC Porto was more pragmatic, more competent in key moments, and more effective in managing advantages. Merit that, in high-level football, is rarely measured solely by display quality.

The red defender rejected scenarios of a lost season and reinforced the locker room's unity around the coach, downplaying external criticism. This discourse of cohesion is relevant in a context of accumulated disappointments, but it does not erase the competitive reality: Benfica continues to show structural difficulties in big games, especially in what most decides matches — the goal.

In the end, there remains a paradox difficult to ignore. Benfica may have had more shots in the game, but they left defeated once again. They may have shown emotional and physical evolution, but they failed to change the result. And as long as the discourse of merit is not accompanied by offensive effectiveness, especially in decisive stadiums like Dragão, it will continue to sound more like a justification than an indisputable conclusion.

In football, there are no moral victories. There are victories on the field, and FC Porto has been stronger than Benfica.

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