More than five years later, FC Porto won in Braga (1-0) and ended the 2023/24 Portuguese League four points ahead of SC Braga. After the victory that confirmed the third place and the qualification to the Europa League, Vítor Bruno described “a very cautious, divided game” in which “the team never broke mentally, remained balanced and aware of what they had to do, never losing composure”. 

According to Sérgio Conceição's assistant coach - the main coach was banned after seeing the fifth yellow in the derby -, “the victory is clearly deserved and fair against a team worthy of the Champions League”. "With a lot of energy, a lot of courage, ambition and cunning, we can win the Portuguese Cup and offer to our Museum, even if they try to beat us down", the coach stated, in preparation to the final of the Portuguese Cup.

The victory was all that mattered
“Two results were enough to guarantee the third place, but only one was worked on during the week. We were expecting a difficult game, looking at recent history and at the fact that we have had some difficulty winning here. We went in well, it was important to limit SC Braga's talent at first, with all those quality midfielders, and reduce the spaces that would allow their attackers to use all their individual capacity and creative expression. That I think we did well.”

Two different halves
“There was some reluctance from both teams in taking too many risks, in the first half there was nothing that grabbed the spectators or those on the bench. A very cautious game, divided, we had the initiative and we were probably better before their player was sent-off. We started to try to control the game too much, making it too slow... In the second half, we entered differently, we readjusted a couple of things at halftime, the team pushed up to the opposing area. We created a number of situations near the goal, but couldn't do what we wanted, which was to score a goal, but over time we realized it was possible.”

Cold head
“At some moments in the second half we ended up playing long balls, at the risk of allowing counterattacks, and SC Braga had one or two moments where they created good situations. Even so, the team never lost composure, remained balanced, aware of what they had to do, never losing calm, and, at that point, the players began to think that they could get away with the result. SC Braga had to take a risk, the spaces would appear and Mehdi always guarantees a little more quality in the attack. We scored the goal and the clearly deserved to win, defeating a Champions League team.”

Qualification reached
“Victory fits us perfectly and it was important to guarantee direct access to the Europa League. The team knew the importance of the game for that reason, we did it well and now we will try to feed on the energy we took from here for a complicated game next weekend, another final. With a lot of energy, a lot of courage, ambition and cunning, we can win the Portuguese Cup and offer to our Museum, even if they try to beat us down.”

Complete motivation
“The team is motivated to rest tomorrow and then get back in Olival on Monday to start preparing, thoroughly and in detail, for the match against Sporting. We’re fighting for it as we always do.”