FC Porto: Ready to Defeat the European Champions?

Tonight Manchester United will step on the grass of the Estádio do Dragão in order to chew the hardball they couldn't finish at home. The reigning champions, already dreaming of the final with Barcelona, got scared twice by the modest Portuguese champions during the first leg of this game.

As for the FC Porto supporters, this slightly favorable result didn't come as a surprise—their mentality is tough, the club is treated with a plenty of hard love, and in no circumstance do they allow their players to go defensive and play for the draw.

In recent years Porto has demonstrated their qualities in the Champions League group stage, but then been prematurely eliminated in the next phase. When last summer the domestic rivals intended to eliminate Porto from the Champions League with some cunning bureaucraftship, based on the alleged corruption (twice discarded by the court of law), a common dream became to gain shape among the stunned Porto fans: this will be our year. So when the quarterfinal opponent came out,they were already prepared for any team in the world.

Vitor Baía, goalkeeper of the 2004 Champions League winning team, who continues with FC Porto now as the director of the external relations of the club, held it firmly right after the draw that dictated the encounter with Manchester United in the quarterfinals:

"Manchester United is a superpower of the football world, and we came out happy last time we encountered them. Although this is a whole different game, we keep our hope, because in this kind of game, both are favorites. We will assume our ambition to continue."

Baía claimed that the difference between the two clubs is of the economic nature, and even if the Manchester United budget is somewhat otherworldly compared to the one of Porto, in terms of experience, Manchester United and Porto are really very close in figures of participation and trophies won in the European competition.

There seems to prevail some ignorance about the position of the FC Porto in the European landscape, only dominating their "weak" domestic league quite incessantly for the last 20 years. Porto has regularly past the group stage of the CL, accusing anyhow more difficulties against the English teams.

As easy as it is to remember the striking numbers of their group stage away matches in Liverpool (4-1, in 2007) or Arsenal, it easily escapes from the average football spectator that they have actually given beautiful and thrilling performances against a parade of great clubs—as it happened last year, when a hint of bad luck and Schalke 04 goalkeeper's dream match at Dragão resulted to their elimination in the Round of 16. The only really bad European game I can remember was the latest Arsenal fiasco at Emirates when the current team of FC Porto was still very much in construction.

As talking about the weak Portuguese league, where the trophies might be bought in supermarket, as Sir Ferguson put it back in 2004, we might forget that FC Porto is itself the supermarket for the top European clubs. In England, particularly Chelsea is a well known client of Porto surplus, but also Manchester United fell in temptation with the young and brilliant Anderson, who in my opinion, could be Ferguson's wild card as he tries to gain the midfield of Dragão tonight.

This has been pointed out as the key weakness of the Dragons as competing with the European giants of football: Porto players can't resist the temptation of larger salaries and more outstanding leagues so the club loses every year its vital players.

Porto in effect has turned this weakness into virtue. Knowing the economic reality of Portugal, it seems that the cashflow of sales allows them to maintain the winning structure of the club organisation and feed the hungry dragons of the home stadium with victories, regardless of the changing the names on the equipment.

Actually in these times when the capital-driven football often reduces the concept of "forming the team" in a series of high-end market decisions, Porto seems to have found another niche in the player market. Their business mission could be described in terms of informatics: buy the hardware relatively cheap, install your own OS on it, and then sell the resulting top players expensive.

There is one thing you can't buy: experience. And somehow Porto has managed to accumulate the experience in spite of constant changes in its manpower. It's the culture of a hard-working club that makes the difference, and why not, the spirit and support that the inhabitants of the Invincible City give to the players of the club.

Despite these considerations of a passionate Porto supporter, tonight the pressure will be stronger on the side of holder of the trophy, who to guarantee their continuation have to play to make history: to beat the Portuguese team on their homeground.

As looking forward to a game, I hope that Porto will enter calm-minded, keeping up with their trademark, quality play with seamless teamwork that a week ago silenced the Old Trafford stadium.

The two teams will certainly enter with their finest selection of players, only Fucile lacking from the choices of Porto. Latest news unfortunately tell, that there will be now an unusual silence on the bench of Porto too: the coach Jesualdo Ferreira is punished by UEFA and can't assist the match . We'll see how FC Porto overcomes this problem.

If Porto can make it with honor tonight, it will be remembered as a sort of David's victory over Goliath. The rivals in the competition, such as Villarreal or Arsenal will join to the cheers of Porto fans!

If not, it will put an end to Porto's showcase in the European window for this season. Although the Porto center Bruno Alves would be first to disagree with the slogan "There's no such thing as bad publicity", certainly playing with the European champions is the best publicity a team can get at this stage.

So if the players of Porto won´t turn European champions this season, some of them will still turn some another year, maybe in another club.

That's just the way it goes in Porto.

Every player in Porto is champions' material!