Taça de Portugal

In a repeat of last years Taça de Portugal final, Porto visits Estádio José Alvalade to face Sporting. It is an twist of fate to see these two rivals drawn so early in the competition, particularly as you consider both played in tough Champions League matches earlier this week.

While the Dragões generally only release selected information before matches, Jesualdo Ferreira has been particularly tight-lipped about this and excluding the posted squad list, all commentary is media supposition or a nice way to say, building up content. For the match he has posted the squad list as below with the only change being a fully-fit Jorge Fucile returning in lieu of Cristian Săpunaru.

Bruno Alves, Fernando, Jorge Fucile, Freddy Guarín, Helton, Hulk, Lino, Lisandro López, Lucho González, Mariano González, Nuno, Pedro Emanuel, Pelé, Raul Meireles, Cristian Rodríguez, Rolando, Milan Stepanov, Tarik Sektioui e Tomás Costa,

Going into the match Paulo Bento is confident and with good reason. Besides having tremendous crowd support in defense of the being back to back winners of the Taça de Portugal they are without a doubt playing consistently better than Porto and showing signs that this is "their year." That might be a bitter pill for Port supporters but three wins in seven matches is a deplorable start and reason for concern. Domestically Porto has been terribly inconsistent and showing a embarrassing lack of commitment, losing to Leixões and Naval 1º de Maio in a manner that champions should never allow on the pitch. How this past weeks stunning victory against Dynamo Kyiv will impact them is guess work but hopefully it will be a wake-up call to not only improve performance but remember the crest they wear. While I have uttered it in the past, it's time to see Pelé more on the pitch, not simply because of his abilities but as a representative of the regional product and the obvious connection to the community.

Enjoy the match and I will report on it as it concludes.