Clássico lays bare blunt attack, but Farioli keeps FC Porto competitive | OneFootball

It is now virtually a consensus within Porto circles that Francesco Farioli has been finding solutions one after another and masking FC Porto’s attacking weaknesses since losing first Luuk de Jong and then Samu. Faced with that scenario, the Italian coach was forced to reshuffle the team, share responsibilities, and look for answers where the squad seemed to have no alternatives left, without that preventing FC Porto from remaining competitive until the very last moment of the season.

The clássico against Sporting, in the second leg of the Portuguese Cup semi-final, was the latest illustration of that resilience. Térèm Moffi, introduced only for the final 20 minutes, could have ended the match as the main figure: almost with the last touch of the game, he forced Rui Silva into a desperate save to deny the goal that would have taken the tie into extra time and kept a Porto comeback alive, even while down to ten men.

However, on the other side of the attack, there remains an almost contradictory case: Deniz Gul. After providing the decisive assist for Gabri Veiga’s goal against Tondela, the Turkish international still has not established a steady relationship with the opposition goal and has now gone 18 straight matches without scoring, despite enjoying more minutes. His last goal dates back to 22 January, against Viktoria Plzen in the Europa League, and in the league one has to go back to 27 October and the decisive goal in Moreira de Cónegos (2-1) to find his last appearance on the scoresheet.

The comparison with Samu is inevitable and even harsher. The Spanish forward was FC Porto’s main attacking pillar, with 20 goals and one assist in all competitions, 13 of those goals in the league, until injury forced him out of the team at half-time of the clássico against Sporting on 10 February at the Dragão, following a sprain to his right knee that was later confirmed as a torn anterior cruciate ligament. With an average of more than 0.7 goals per game, he was the most influential player in the blue-and-white attack.

Luuk de Jong also became a solution for a while, albeit briefly and with bad luck. The Dutchman, signed in the summer of 2025, left the Dragão with just 1 goal in six official matches, before two consecutive injuries and surgery ruled him out of the team for good.

Against Sporting, Deniz Gul had a quiet attacking performance, with only two shots, one wide and the other blocked, without a single effort on target. Put under heavy pressure by Diomande, he touched the ball only 10 times and struggled to get into the game, unable to create chances or make use of his dribbling. In passing, he posted acceptable accuracy (3 out of 4, 75%), although his distribution lacked verticality and was almost always backwards. Defensively, he won only one of the seven duels he contested and was beaten twice in one-on-one situations, in an overall display of limited influence in the clássico.

Térèm Moffi came on with 20 minutes left and, even so, was the FC Porto player who came closest to scoring in the final play, when he met a corner with a powerful header stopped by an extraordinary save from Rui Silva. In little time on the pitch, he had two shots, one of them on target, and seven touches of the ball, making his mark in the Dragons’ most dangerous moment of the match.

Despite his limited use, the Nigerian international showed some efficiency in what little he did: he completed three of his four passes, won three of his five duels, and came out on top in two of his three aerial duels, numbers that help frame his strong presence in the decisive move. He also finished the clássico with one shot off target and only one loss of possession, in a brief but relevant display because of the chance created right at the death.

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