The stats don't lie: Farioli has Porto running like never before | OneFootball

Hired to ‘make people forget’ the Argentine Martín Anselmi, who was dismissed after a season that fell short of expectations with a record of ten wins, six draws, and five losses in 21 official matches, Francesco Farioli quickly took command of FC Porto’s first team.

The numbers, in fact, are impressive: under the Italian coach’s guidance, the Dragons have racked up six wins in six official games, scoring 15 goals and conceding only one – the 2-1 victory over Sporting at Estádio José Alvalade resulted from an unfortunate own goal by Nehuén Pérez.

The positive indicators don’t stop there. According to data released this Saturday by the Football Observatory (CIES), the blue and white team is currently the one that performs the most “high-intensity runs” per game, that is, “runs averaging more than 20 km/h for more than one second.”

On average, FC Porto records 76.2 such sprints per player every 90 minutes, leading the list, followed by Bournemouth (76.1), Newcastle (74.6), Sint-Truidense (74.5), PSV (73.9), Slovan Liberec (73.2), Bayern Munich (72.5), Lille (72.2), Midtjylland (70.9), and Heerenveen (70.8).

Running a lot, however, is not synonymous with quality by itself.

Although the volume of running does not always guarantee performance, the strategy implemented by the former Ajax coach has paid off: the club from the Invicta City leads the Primeira Liga outright – the only competition they have participated in so far in the 2025/26 season – with 18 points out of a possible 18.

Chasing them are Sporting and Moreirense, both with 12 points. Interestingly, FC Porto could see this gap change as early as the sixth round, since these two rivals will face each other next Monday at 8:15 p.m. (Portugal mainland time), at Estádio José Alvalade.

Next up is the Europa League:

The almost immaculate campaign of the Porto side will be tested next Thursday at 8:00 p.m., when they make their debut in the Europa League group stage against Salzburg at the Red Bull Arena in Austria – it will be their first international fixture since the arrival of Francesco Farioli.

In the second tier of European club football, the Dragons will also face Red Star (on October 2 at the Dragão), Nottingham Forest (on October 23 at the City Ground), Utrecht (on November 6 at Stadion Galgenwaard), Nice (on November 27 at the Dragão), Malmö (on December 11 at the Dragão), Viktoria Plzen (on January 22 at the Doosan Arena), and Rangers (on January 29 at the Dragão).

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