José Alberto Costa: With patience, Rodrigo Mora has a bright future | OneFootball

José Alberto Costa, former footballer, believes that FC Porto will be up to the challenge of visiting Sporting on Saturday, for the Primeira Liga, and praises the improvement in the options and the performance quality of the Dragons.

“FC Porto has made a huge leap, not only due to the acquisition of new players, but also because of the change in coach. The team is much more confident, aggressive, dynamic, and has a well-defined model, which has contributed to this increase in productivity. I am optimistic about this game because the team is doing very well and has shown solidity and a completely different winning attitude compared to last season,” noted the former striker, 71, who played for the blue and whites between 1978 and 1985, to Lusa news agency.

Reigning national champions Sporting and FC Porto, who are part of a trio of Primeira Liga leaders along with Moreirense – all with nine points – will face each other on Saturday at 8:30 pm at the Estádio José Alvalade in Lisbon, in the fourth round, in one of the first big clashes of the competition.

“Both teams are performing well and even somewhat surprisingly for this stage of the season and compared to 2024/25. Sporting has kept most of its players and the departure of Viktor Gyokeres has not been felt as much as many feared, being compensated by the way the team is organized and coached,” said the winner of two league titles, a Portuguese Cup, and a Super Cup with the Dragons.

José Alberto Costa points out progress at FC Porto almost two months after the arrival of Italian coach Francesco Farioli, highlighting as examples the high pressing, effectiveness on set pieces, and offensive build-up, in which the team “sometimes plays calmly, waiting for the opponent to push up the field, and is more objective and quick in transition.” “They have exceeded my expectations and those of many people, especially since it was not an easy task to make all these changes and get the transformations in the squad right. This financial engineering only gives credit to those leading the club’s destiny. I hope they can keep getting it right until the end of the term, because what they did this transfer window was fantastic,” said the author of 32 goals in 200 games for the Dragons, regarding the biggest transfer market in the club’s history promised by the blue and white president André Villas-Boas.

In addition to mentioning the increase in “width, dribbling ability, and imbalance” in attack, the former international highlights the “security and organization” of Polish center-back Jan Bednarek, who arrived from Southampton, and the “intensity, ball carrying, and influence” of Danish midfielder Victor Froholdt, signed from Copenhagen.

The future of forward Rodrigo Mora remains open. He turned 18 in May and scored 11 goals and provided four assists in 35 games in his debut season for FC Porto’s first team. He has not started since Farioli’s arrival and has come off the bench in the victories over Gil Vicente (2-0) and Casa Pia (4-0). “He has all the conditions to succeed at FC Porto or any other team. Now, because of his age, he needs support and good advice around him. He can stay and go on to deliver and establish himself, as long as he doesn’t convince himself or let others convince him that he’s the best in the world, and as long as he doesn’t try to do everything alone because of that influence. If he gets good advice, stays calm, and doesn’t rush things, he has a bright future ahead. Whether it will be at FC Porto or not depends on this whole relationship that exists and that outsiders don’t know in depth,” assessed José Alberto Costa.

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