Botelho da Costa: "We'll find space to hurt FC Porto" | OneFootball

After two consecutive defeats (against Nacional in the main competition and Fafe in the Cup), Moreirense hosts FC Porto on Monday at 8:15 pm, in the match that closes the 9th round of the Portuguese League. Coach Vasco Botelho da Costa wants to stop the Dragons – who suffered their first defeat of the season in England, against Nottingham Forest, in the Europa League. “If I say now that FC Porto will also want to respond, I’d say this game would end in a draw and I would even accept that result. These are different circumstances, of course, but I have to say it’s easy to be Moreirense’s coach this week, because if the mindset isn’t switched on for a game with this visibility, it will hardly be switched on for the others,” said the Minho coach, emphasizing that the club is “going through some structural changes”: “We want to create an identity here, that’s very much what we’re aiming for. It’s a fact that there’s good work being done in Portuguese football as a whole, now with Liga 3 which has brought a rising level. We have good players and good coaches coming from there and that’s something to be pleased about.”

Vasco Botelho da Costa acknowledges the difficulty of facing the blue and whites, but aims to earn points against the leader. “FC Porto is not just the club, so there may be a tendency to look at the numbers, with only one goal conceded and having the best attack, but it’s more about the quality of the team’s play and the speed the group imposes. They have the ability to be a versatile team, who can play long or short, so they are very competent. They are the most competent team in the league, if the standings say so, we have to respect that. It will be a game where, at times, we won’t be able to be the team we always want to be and we’ll have to be the team that FC Porto allows us to be. That ends up being normal, given the quality of the opponent. We’ll find space to hurt FC Porto at certain moments. They have very good pressing all over the pitch, so we’ll take a bit from the game at Alvalade, where we were also pressed all over the field. With the right strategy, we’ll have a good game tomorrow,” he explained.

Nottingham Forest and Benfica are the only teams that have managed to halt FC Porto’s momentum, and the Moreirense coach admits he might draw inspiration from those opponents’ approaches to explore possible weaknesses in the Dragons. “Yes and no, because, in a way, it’s good to see that certain strategies work, but the players and the team are different, Moreirense won’t have those players. On the other hand, we also feel that FC Porto may have some weaknesses, and that can give us some clues about what to try. However, if I were in the FC Porto coach’s shoes, I would work on those weaknesses, that’s what we do here. We have our own strategy, according to our own team, regardless of whether they have already lost or not, we can’t stray from our characteristics. We worked well and we’re prepared,” he assessed.

Faced with two consecutive defeats, he was asked to what extent those setbacks affected the squad’s confidence and could influence the game against the leader. “Because it’s against FC Porto, I don’t think it will. When we were winning consecutively, I came here to say that victories couldn’t influence us too much, and we should do the same now. I will always place the five biggest clubs of the 1st League on a different level, it’s almost like playing two championships. Honestly, we work so that this doesn’t weigh on us, we looked at the game with Fafe and drew our own conclusions, understanding the process. We’ll have to step out of our comfort zone, but that’s positive, because we also want to be a very versatile team to have several weapons at our disposal,” he concluded, adding that Kiko Bondoso remains injured and that Schettine will have a final test in the morning training to check if he’s fit to compete at 100% against FC Porto.

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