A worthy FC Porto played the first leg of the Round of 16 of the UEFA Champions League. This Wednesday night, at Estádio do Dragão, the national triplet winners beat the nine times in a row Italian champions, Juventus, 2-1, showing their European strength and a tremendous fighting spirit, which earned them a one goal advantage for the second leg, scheduled for March 9, in Turin.

After the home tie in the derby, last weekend, against Boavista, Sérgio Conceição made four changes in the team. Diogo Leite, Malang Sarr, Fábio Vieira and João Mário were replaced by Mbemba, Zaidu, Matheus Uribe and Otávio. The only match in this knockout stage that opposed two former European champions couldn’t have been better for the 1987 and 2004 winners of the competition. Ninety seconds in, Betancur passed back to Szczesny and Mehdi Taremi took the mistake to make it count. Diving straight at the ball, the Iranian forward was faster than the goalkeeper and opened the scoreboard. After that, FC Porto proved that the great start wasn’t just a coincidence and showed fighting spirit, with physical strength and skill in one on ones, facing a team that seemed to be thinking of something else.

15 minutes in, the Italian team had yet to make any shot and the blue and whites remained united. That was clear whenever the bianconeri tried to play with short passes from the back: FC Porto would move up the lines and caused trouble to the team led by Andrea Pirlo. Whenever the vecchia signora aimed at long plays, the ball would end up on the side lines. After Demiral was sent in to replace the injured Chiellini - who gave the captain armband to former Dragon Alex Sandro - Marchesín was called to action for the first time in the match and prevented the tie with a great save. Until then, the goalkeeper, who is in the list of goalkeepers with fewer goals conceded in the current edition of the Champions League, was only called to shorten the distance to the defence. 

The start of the second-half felt similar to the first. After a great play on the right wing, Manafá moved with the ball for several metres and passed to Marega. Facing the goal, the Malian forward didn’t hesitate and made it 2-0, much to the delight of his team mates on the pitch and on the bench. The next one to show his quality was Matheus Uribe, who cleared a promising attack in the area led by Kulusevski, with a tackle. Two minutes later, Sérgio Oliveira moved up with the ball from the middle and ended the play with a shot from his left foot which Szczesny saved easily. Returning from injury, Otávio, tired, was replaced by Luis Díaz, but opposing coach Pirlo changed nothing on his side. Juventus changed from a 3-5-2, with Danilo as third central defender and Chiesa as right fullback, to a four defenders tactic, with Chiesa moving up to the left wing of the attack and Kulusevski on the right. Shortly after that, Grujic replaced Marega, also tired, and Corona tried to score the goal of the evening in a bicycle kick, but the Mexican winger was offside.

Forced to a second good save, Marchesín again denied the goal to the opponent seventy minutes in. Five minutes later, Matheus Uribe gave the opportunity to score to Sérgio Oliveira. The Colombian passed to his team mate, and the midfielder shot straight at the goalkeeper. In the last ten minutes, the sub-captain of the Dragons took a corner-kick straight at Marko Grujic, but the header went outside the post. In the following attack, Rabiot made the best of the space given to him on the left and crossed back for Chiesa to score on the far post, in a good volley, reducing the disadvantage for Juventus. Before the end, Francisco Conceição went in along with Loum, and debuted in the biggest club competition in the world at only 18 years old. Alex Sandro was shown the yellow card for preventing Taremi from going alone for goal, and then Cristiano Ronaldo called for a penalty, but referee Carlos Del Cerro and the VAR didn’t see any foul on the national squad captain. Shortly after that, the Spanish referee ended the match, signalling a victory of the Portuguese  champions over the Italian champions, which, truth be told, felt short for the blue and whites. That’s how demanding the club is.