In the opening matchday, FC Porto beat Santa Clara at home, 1-0. At the end of the match, Sérgio Conceição stated that he was pleased and praised the individual quality of everyone working for the team.

First victory in the League Cup
“I’m pleased. I think that it is important for the team to work. We played as a team, we played well, and there were definitely moments of great quality, which were related to our dynamic as a team and to our strategy for the match. Congratulations to the players, we are starting this competition well. We did some changes, starting with many different players in comparison to the last match, and most of them are kids that have been proving they deserve to be in the squad.”

On Mbemba
“He had a difficult role, as he was often our third man with passing quality and efficiency when we were trying to create plays, and, when we quickly moved to a second stage, he would join the midfield and allow our fullbacks to add the depth we wanted. What we worked on was done perfectly, given the good individual performances we had.”

Complete confidence in the squad
“There were many players that haven’t been playing as much, but had already been in the starting team. We look at this competition like all other, and this was another match where we represented FC Porto, so our determination and ambition is always high. Tonight, we added great moments of football to that, we had a lot of quality and skill, playing for the team, and that’s what I like.”

Objectives in the competition
“Since I got here, I believe this is the 10th match for the League Cup and I have yet to lose, FC Porto never lost with me. We want to win these matches, and be it domestic competitions or European matches, we always play to win. We are competitive, we are a club that always wants to win so that we can have what we want in the end, which is win titles.”