After a convincing 4-0 victory against Vizela in the last match of the group stage of the Portuguese Cup, Porto welcome Gil Vicente to their home ground in the 1/4 finals of this competition. Porto did not start the competition in the cup in the best way this year, because they had to chase a two-goal deficit against Mafra at home and in the end they only managed to win a point. But after that, they took their opponents as seriously as possible, as the results show. In the next two matches, they scored 6 goals and did not concede any, and they enter the continuation of the competition with a great deal of confidence. Against Vizela, they scored a goal already in the first minute of the match and it was clear that the guest will not ask anything in that match. Since they failed to score a second goal in the first half, the coach of Porto, Conceicao, did not want to leave anything to chance and sent his best players, Evanilson, Otavio and Taremi, to the field. The difference these players brought was obvious and Porto already had a 4-0 advantage in the 67th minute. In the last 10 games played at home for all competitions, Porto won 7, drew 1 and lost 2. Their attack has scored regularly, as they managed to achieve in 9 of the last 10 games. In their home games there is a tendency for goals, since in 53 of their last 61 games there were more than 1.5 goals. I expect that Porto will come out with the strongest team from the start of the match and in that way they will control the course of the game from the very start.
Gil Vicente has reached this stage of the competition as the first-placed team of its group. And it must be said that they had more than an easy group. Of the three opponents it had, two were teams that are in the lower part of the table of the second Portuguese league. Although they enter this match in a very good mood, I think that the difference in the quality of these two teams is too great and that Gil Vicente will not be asked much in this match. This is supported by the fact that they have been playing very bad games in the championship lately. They achieved their last victory in the championship back in September, after that they played one draw and in the next 6 championship games they know only for defeats. In the course of the championship so far, they played with the 4 best teams in Portugal (Benfica, Porto, Sporting and Braga) and recorded 4 defeats with 9 goals conceded and only two scored. This is perhaps just another indicator that points to the difference in quality between Gil Vicente and the best teams in Portugal. In the table, they occupy a place that leads them to the second league, with only 9 points won after 13 games, in which they managed to score only 11 goals. It is clear that with such statistics, they cannot expect too much against a much better opponent. I expect Porto to repeat the game from the previous game and secure a place in the semi-finals with another safe game in front of their fans.
