FC Porto couldn’t beat Belenenses SAD (0-0), at Estádio do Jamor, but Pepe believes the team did enough to end matchday 17 with a victory, especially considering the penalty that wasn’t signalled in the play that ended with Nanu being carried to the hospital. The blue and white captain believes the Dragons tried “everything”, but the circumstances of the match didn’t allow for the national champions to get the three points: “I’ve seen our rivals getting penalties for far less”.

Nanu injured and a penalty not given
“First of all, I want to wish a fast recovery to our teammate Nanu. From what the medics told me, he was conscious when we was carried away. That play costed us a player that was having a good match, and, the way I saw it, it should have been a penalty, but the referee needs to call it. From my point of view, it was a clear penalty. I’ve seen our rivals getting penalties for far less. It’s not because there were already six or seven penalties signalled for FC Porto this season that this one shouldn’t have been signalled. The referee needs to show character in times like this. The referee told me it was involuntary, but it wasn’t. The criteria for this need to be set, so that we can understand. There are different criteria for different teams.”

The resume of the match
“We had opportunities to score, plenty of ball possession, we tried from the wings, from the middle, but we knew they were defending in the back. We tried in every possible way, but failed to score. We need to recover because we have a difficult match in Braga on Sunday and we want to win it. We have to recover now and be at our best level.”

The numbers for the title
“There are still plenty of matches to go and we need to worry with what we can do, which is to play, score goals and win our matches.”