Sunday, April 26, 2009

Porto drives to championship

Porto continued their assault on their fourth successive Liga championship as they defeated Vitória de Setúbal 2-0 at Estádio do Dragão on the strength of Lisandro López' two goals. With the victory Jesualdo Ferreira's side now heads into the final month of the campaign with a confident four point margin over Sporting.

Os Dragões were without the services of Hulk and former Rapid Bucureşti-man Cristian Săpunaru for the match. The visitors, despite flirting with relegation, clamped down the match perfectly in the opening half and did not allow a noteworthy assault. In-fact the best scoring chance of the half was of Os Sadinos, via non other than Bruno Gama whose clever effort six minutes before the half forced the best out of Helton to deny. After the break tensions were running high as Porto was finding the going rough. Finally a minute past the hour Porto had the needed goal as Fernando played the ball to Ernesto Farías on the left side of the box and after a quick advance sent the ball to Lisandro López surging into the area. Following a difficult challenge the Argentine international sent the ball in from eleven metres. Only six minutes later the Azuis e brancos clad supporters rose to their feet as Mariano González drove down the right flank and as he turned near the bye-line, sent a perfect low cross to Lisandro to side foot in for his second of the night. The match concluded without further mark as Porto earned the 2-0 victory.