This Saturday, FC Porto beat Marítimo at home, 3-0, for match 26 of the championship. After the match, Sérgio Conceição praised the performance of his team, but reminded that the Dragons will have more complicated matches ahead and that the team will always have to aim at the three points.

Difficulty of facing ten men
​“Usually, the teams that have a player sent-off will close more, with everyone helping out. Marítimo pretty much placed 10 men behind the ball line. We were predictable in the first-half, with too many crosses, but always predictable. We lacked a little speed in the attack. Even with little space to move, we could have moved around more. Still, we managed to create three or four goal opportunities that could have given us the advantage before the break.”

Better in the second-half
“In the second-half, I did some changes to our offensive dynamics, meaning the way we built our plays. I added wideness with Manafá, Alex Telles on the other wing, with many people on the inside, and we created faster situations. The match was better, we scored our goals and left other occasions to score. We did our job and won the match.”

Keep with the victories
“Every victory is important. Obviously, I care about what our opponents do, but that isn’t our motivation. The result of the opponent cannot interfere with our work, and cannot influence our happiness. We have to stay on our path. At the preview of the match, I said that, if we win these nine finals, including this match, we could be closer to our objective, which is to win the championship.”

Eight finals to go
“We won’t be champions if we are tied in the lead. I am convinced that every match until the end will be hard. As we move towards the end of the championship, regardless of facing teams still fighting for the title, such as Braga or Sporting, whom we still have to face, or teams that are trying to escape relegation, every match will be hard. If we win match by match, and make it to the end with these victories, we might be happy in the end.”