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 quality of the Dragons’ performances.

“FC Porto has made a huge leap, not only because of the acquisition of new players, but also due to the change of coach. The team is much more confident, aggressive, dynamic, and has a well-defined model, which has contributed to this increase in productivity. I’m looking at this game with optimism, because the team is doing very well and has shown solidity and a completely different winning attitude compared to last season,” noted the former forward, 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 alongside Moreirense – all with nine points – will face each other on Saturday at 8:30 pm at Estádio José Alvalade in Lisbon, in the fourth round, in one of the first big clashes between the giants in this competition.

“Both teams are performing well and even somewhat surprisingly considering the stage of the season and compared to 2024/25. Sporting has kept most of its players, and Viktor Gyokeres’ departure hasn’t been felt as much as many feared, being offset 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, citing as examples the high pressing, set-piece effectiveness, and offensive build-up, in which the team “sometimes plays calmly, waiting for the opponent to push up, while at other times it is more objective and quick in transition.” “They have exceeded my expectations and those of many people, especially since it wasn’t an easy task to make all these changes and get the squad transformations right. This financial engineering only gives credit to those leading the club’s ambitions. I hope they can keep getting it right until the end of the term, because what they did in this transfer window was fantastic,” said the man who scored 32 goals in 200 games for the Dragons, about the club’s biggest ever transfer market promised by the blue and white president André Villas-Boas.

In addition to mentioning the increase in “width, dribbling ability, and unpredictability” 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 striker Rodrigo Mora remains open. He turned 18 in May and scored 11 goals and provided four assists in 35 matches in his debut season with FC Porto’s first team. He has yet to start since Farioli’s arrival, coming off the bench in the wins against Gil Vicente (2-0) and Casa Pia (4-0). “He has everything it takes 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 get convinced 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 try to rush things, he has a bright future ahead. Whether that will be at FC Porto or not depends on the whole relationship that exists and which 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.