Benfica and Porto end year with victories to put pressure on Sporting | OneFootball

In the final round of matches of 2023, Benfica and Porto clocked up home victories over Famalicão and Chaves respectively to put pressure on erstwhile leaders Sporting, who must now win against Portimonense in the Algarve tomorrow to recover top spot.

Goals by Arthur Cabral, Rafa Silva and Petar Musa gave Benfica a 3-0 triumph at the Estádio da Luz, while a João Mário strike proved the difference for Porto in a 1-0 win over the Transmontanos.

Benfica 3-0 Famalicão

Roger Schmidt, Benfica coach:

“It was an important victory. Famalicão are a very good team, well organised, with talent in attack. I think we controlled the game very well. We scored 1-0 and could have killed off the game a bit earlier. We didn’t and we had 10-15 difficult minutes, but we decided the game with two very good transitions. It was a good victory, achieved with hard work.

“Arthur Cabral? I’m very happy and relieved he scored his first goal in our stadium. He’s a very good person and a good player. His start was not ideal and the expectations for a Benfica forward are always high. He scored a very important goal in Salzburg and today it was very important he scored again. He’s still only halfway there, he has lots of potential and he can give us a lot.”

Sérgio Conceição, Porto coach:

“I expected a tough time to break them down. The coaches who play against Porto try and surprise us with a different setup to their usual game. We played against a back line of six, the wide players blocked the flanks, there was little space, with a lot of players in the middle. Merit to the defensive organisation of Chaves.

“We started well, we had situations where we could have made better decisions and finished better, but the players worked hard which was important. At the end of the match Chaves threw lots of players in the box, and credit to [Porto goalkeeper] Diogo Costa, but we should have scored more goals. In these final minutes we should have been winning by more.”