FC Porto wall is back: Bednarek-Kiwior unbeaten in Primeira Liga | OneFootball

After their Champions League debut, FC Porto are preparing to return to a stadium associated with a defining moment of last season. In Rio Maior, on matchday 20 of the league campaign, the team coached by Francesco Farioli suffered their first defeat, against Casa Pia, a result that allowed Sporting to close the gap to four points. Even so, the setback did not decisively shake the Dragons, who would go on to win the national title with only one more defeat, against Aves SAD, after the championship had already been secured. There is, however, a common denominator in those two negative results: Bednarek and Kiwior, the Polish duo at the heart of the defence, were not on the pitch. The statistic becomes even more significant when the other domestic competitions are included, as Farioli has suffered only four defeats in 41 matches against Portuguese opposition. To those two league defeats are added the results against V. Guimarães (1-3) in the League Cup and Sporting (0-1) in the Portuguese Cup. In none of those matches did the two Polish centre-backs play together, just as happened in the aforementioned league games.

The numbers are clear: in the 33 matches in which Bednarek and Kiwior were on the pitch at the same time — 30 in the league and three in the Portuguese Cup — FC Porto recorded 28 wins and five draws, without tasting defeat. Although football cannot be reduced to an exact science, the data suggest that Porto concede far less when they have the two Polish centre-backs in the starting eleven.

After missing the match against Manchester City due to serving the first of a two-game suspension handed down by UEFA, Bednarek is available again. Farioli thus regains one of the team’s most important and consistent players. Looking only at the older Polish centre-back’s performances, one figure is particularly striking: the average number of goals conceded is much lower when Jakub is on the pitch. In the 55 matches played in the blue-and-white shirt, FC Porto conceded 28 goals, although two of them — against Nottingham and Sporting, in the Cup — came after the player had gone off. The average stands at 0.5 goals conceded per game, while in the five matches Bednarek did not feature it rises to 1. In other words, it doubles. In those games, FC Porto conceded three goals against V. Guimarães and two against Manchester City on Tuesday. Despite the defender’s absence, the Dragons did not concede against Sintrense, Alverca or Santa Clara.

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