2026/2027 league phase

Champions League

Club page
Champions League · Club page
FC Porto
Head coach: Francesco Farioli · 4-3-3
Rank
30th
Pts
0
P
2
Form
🔴 Very poor

The essentials at a glance

The summary of this page: estimated level of play, form trend and qualitative verdict. For the details, head to the other tabs.

Editors' ratings
4/10
Attack
4/10
Defence
1/10
Form
1/10
Confidence / mood
Current risk:—

30th with 0 pts from 2 matches: 0 wins, 0 draws, 2 defeats.

2 goals scored, 5 conceded.

FC Porto continues to prepare the duel of the third round of the Champions League in front of the PSV and again trained on Sunday morning.

zerozero · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

The match between FC Porto and PSV, counting on the Champions League, will be directed by Daniel Siebert. The German referee has already whistled several European matches of Portuguese teams.

zerozero · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

Vasco, guided by Pedro Emanuel, went to Morumbi to face São Paulo, in play to count to 31. ª Brazilian Series A journey. Arthur pointed out the only goal of the match and prevented the team guided by the Portuguese technician from breathing more quietly in the fight for maintenance (1-0).

zerozero · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

FC Porto returned to practice this Saturday, after a day off, to begin the preparation of the reception to the PSV Eindhoven, game counting for the third day of the League of Champions league phase, scheduled for 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Dragon Stadium.

zerozero · 17 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

How the team has played recently

Match-by-match results, record and rhythm of the current season.

Latest matches
Lvs Real Betis Balompié (A) · 2-3
Lvs Manchester City FC (H) · 0-2
LL
2 scored / 5 conceded over 2 matches played
Rest: 4 days since the last match · 1 match played in the last 15 days
Home form
0W - 0D - 1L
Away form
0W - 0D - 1L
Statistics

Computed from this season's scores, every time the page is shown.

Goals scored per match
1.0
Goals conceded per match
2.5
At home
0 scored · 2 conceded in 1 match
Away
2 scored · 3 conceded in 1 match
Over 2.5 goals
1 of 2
Both teams score
1 of 2
Clean sheets
0 of 2
Failed to score
1 of 2
Cumulative points vs league average

Not enough matchdays recorded yet for this curve — history builds up with every standings refresh.

How FC Porto play

System, playing identity, and what sets the team apart at both ends of the pitch.

Playing identity
Preferred system
4-3-3
Philosophy
Attacking strengths
Defensive solidity
Pressing
Transitions
Strength
Weakness

The mood around the club, and who is missing

Internal climate, relationship with the supporters, and known absences before the next match.

Mood
Squad confidence
Maximum confidence, and well founded: twelve points from twelve, nine goals scored and none conceded after four matchdays, the only side in the league with a perfect record. The squad goes into matchday 5 with two further signings available for the first time, Santiago Giménez and João Souza, neither of whom had been eased in by a pre-season match. Farioli locked the sequence down himself by announcing that the market was closed for his squad until January, ending the deadline-day speculation. The one shadow is a medical bulletin with five names, including forward Samu, out since February and expected in November.
Coach / players / board relationship
The relationship between Francesco Farioli and his dressing room played out publicly at the close of the window: the head coach sent an unambiguous message to players who may have thought they were leaving, “even the one who felt he might be somewhere else must now feel he is with us”. He is asking for “the best version of everyone” and ties that demand to the supporters rather than to the table. Towards the board, the coach voiced no reservation about recruitment, and A Bola judged two days earlier that he had got the profiles he asked for. His handling of young players completes the picture: 18-year-old winger Duarte Cunha, under contract until 2031, was called up to first-team training.
Mood with the supporters
FC Porto announced a lotação esgotada (sell-out) for their curtain-raiser against Aston Villa at the Estádio do Dragão, scheduled for 26 July 2026: sócios had to be up to date with their June subscription to enter the stadium, with the option of releasing their seat through the official box office if unavailable (A Bola, 21 Jul 2026). This was, however, a pre-season friendly; no attendance figures were found for this season's 2026-27 league matches.
Pressure on the head coach
No public questioning of his position: Francesco Farioli has been in the job since 6 July 2025 (BeSoccer) and is reported to have extended his contract until 2028 in January 2026 according to several Portuguese outlets (Público, Jornal de Negócios, Sábado); those pages could not, however, be opened directly (blocked by robots.txt), so confirmation is still needed from a directly accessible source.
Club objectives
The first objective is to preserve the perfect league record, with Moreirense at home to open matchday 5. The second is immediate and far heavier: FC Porto are discovering the Champions League's single-league format, with Manchester City, Napoli, PSV and Slavia Prague at home, Liverpool, Betis, Feyenoord and LASK away. Farioli explicitly refused to look ahead to that until the league match is played. Internally, the challenge is also to integrate quickly signings who have had no pre-season, while dealing with a UEFA list that left out Gabriel Mec and Dominik Prpić.
Recent internal tensions
No open conflict is reported, but Farioli felt it necessary to publicly call to order the players tempted by a move, a sign that the end of the window left some unsettlement in the squad. Leaving Gabriel Mec and Dominik Prpić off the UEFA list is the other potential source of friction, the head coach having taken care to defuse it by pointing out that “there will be a lot of matches over the course of the season”.
Absences
InjuredZaidu — Still limited to treatment at the training centre, with no team involvement, two days before the home game against Moreirense. Length of absence not disclosed by the club.
InjuredSamu — Injured since February according to Farioli, with a return to competition envisaged in November; the head coach nonetheless kept him on the UEFA list. He was listed as on a modified training programme on the bulletin of 2 Sep 2026.
DoubtfulVasco Sousa — On a modified training programme on the medical bulletin of 2 Sep 2026, with no indication of the nature of the problem or a timeline.
DoubtfulAndré Miranda — On a modified training programme on the medical bulletin of 2 Sep 2026, with no indication of the nature of the problem or a timeline.
DoubtfulOskar Pietuszewski — On a modified training programme on the medical bulletin of 2 Sep 2026, with no indication of the nature of the problem or a timeline.

Before kick-off

What to know before the next match: statistical form, qualitative analysis, and a computed estimate of the 1/X/2 probabilities.

Next match

FC Porto — PSV Eindhoven

At homeTuesday 20 October at 21:00Matchday 3
In 2 days. Kick-off time confirmed by the league. Paris time · football-data.org fixtures.

Prediction, odds and form of both teams →

What the press says
Prediction
EstimateFC Porto — PSV Eindhoven
44 %
1 · FC Porto
22 %
X · draw
34 %
2 · PSV Eindhoven
In-house calculation, from this page's standings data alone: 2 matches played by FC Porto, 2 matches by PSV Eindhoven. Confidence: low
The calculation rests on only 2 matches per team. Shrinkage deliberately pulls the estimate close to a neutral split: it barely tells the two teams apart.
The formula, in plain words — with this match's figures
  1. League average. 141 goals scored over 68 team-matches played (34 teams taken into account), i.e. μ = 2.07 goal scored per team per match. This is the reference point: everything that follows is expressed relative to it.
  2. Attacking and defensive strengths. Goals scored (or conceded) per match, divided by μ. 1.00 = exactly average; in defence, above 1.00 means “concedes more than average”.
    TeamGoalsRawKept
    FC Porto — attack2 in 2 matches0.480.87
    FC Porto — defence5 in 2 matches1.211.05
    PSV Eindhoven — attack1 in 2 matches0.240.81
    PSV Eindhoven — defence2 in 2 matches0.480.87
    The “Kept” column is the result of shrinkage towards the mean: weight = P / (P + 6), i.e. 0.25 for FC Porto and 0.25 for PSV Eindhoven. The rest of the weight goes to the league average. This is what stops a lone 5-0 from producing an attack at 3.3 times the average — and hence a 95% probability.
  3. Home advantage (γ). Measured on the league itself: 2.47 goal scored on average by the host against 1.68 by the visitor, over the 34 fixtures present in each team's last 5 matches. Raw ratio 1.47; shrunk towards 1 (weight 0.36, on the log of the ratio) then capped at 1.25 → γ = 1.15. Shrinkage goes towards 1, i.e. no advantage at all: while the sample is small, the model does not assert a home advantage it cannot measure.
  4. Venue correction, specific to each team. Drawn from the home/away split: points per match at the venue concerned are compared to points per match over all fixtures, with stronger shrinkage (weight = P / (P + 8)) and a bound of ±12%.
    FC Porto at home: 0.00 pts/match versus 0.00 overall over 1 match → ×1.000
    PSV Eindhoven away: 0.00 pts/match versus 0.50 overall over 1 match → ×0.889
  5. Expected goals. One side's attack is set against the other's defence. γ applies to the host only: applying it the other way round too would count the home advantage twice.
    λFC Porto = 2.07 × 0.87 × 0.87 × 1.15 × 1.000 = 1.81
    λPSV Eindhoven = 2.07 × 0.81 × 1.05 × 0.889 = 1.57
  6. Poisson grid. Probability of every exact score from 0-0 to 8-8, assuming the two goal totals are independent, then adding up the cells: home win 43.7%, draw 22.6%, away win 33.8% — displayed rounded to whole numbers so that they add up to exactly 100. Most likely exact score in the grid: 1-1 (only 9.7%, which says enough about how unpredictable an exact score is).
Limits of this model — they are not anecdotal.
  • It only knows goals and a venue. Neither absences, suspensions, line-ups, fatigue, stakes, weather nor club context enter the calculation — while the other tabs of this page show that they matter.
  • The assumption that the two goal totals are independent is false in reality: it slightly underestimates tight scores, hence the draw.
  • γ is measured over a rolling window (each team's last 5 matches), not over the whole season.
  • The shrinkage constants (6, 60, 8) and the bounds are choices, not measurements. They were tuned to be cautious early in the season; they were not calibrated on a results history, as none is available here.
  • No after-the-fact evaluation has been made: at this stage, nobody knows whether this model is better or worse calibrated than another.
What other sources say
No external source has been collected for this match. That is the normal state: readings are taken by hand, and an empty box is better than an unverified figure.
This block shows probability estimates, not predictions, and carries no advisory value. The in-house estimate is the result of a formula applied to a small sample; the figures from external sources are reproduced as they were collected, without their method having been verified.

The full squad

The professional squad by position, captain marked with an armband.

Squad not documented for this team yet.

What has been said recently

Chronological feed of verified information about the club.

rss18 Oct 2026
UEFA appoints good memory referee in the Dragon for the Porto-PSV FC
Source: Notícias ao Minuto — Desporto
rss18 Oct 2026
FC Porto prepares duel with the PSV with two absences
Source: zerozero
rss18 Oct 2026
German referee directs duel between FC Porto and PSV in the Champions League
Source: zerozero
rss18 Oct 2026
Sporting tries to prolong victorious walk, FC Porto seeks reaction
Source: Notícias ao Minuto — Desporto
rss18 Oct 2026
Ex-FC assistance Porto decides against Vasco and complicates accounts of Pedro Emanuel
Source: zerozero
rss17 Oct 2026
Benfica beat Oliveirense, Sporting fell with bang and FC Porto shook
Source: Notícias ao Minuto — Desporto
Head coach3 Sep 2026
At his press conference, Francesco Farioli declared the window closed for his squad: “The market is now shut for us. This is the group until January.” He paired the announcement with a warning to the dressing room, aimed at those who may have thought they were elsewhere this summer: “Even the one who felt he might be somewhere else must now feel he is with us,” demanding “the best version of everyone, with the desire to make the supporters happy” from the visit of Moreirense onwards.
Source: Bola na Rede
Head coach3 Sep 2026
Asked about the coming Champions League fixture, Francesco Farioli refused to look ahead: “In our heads there is absolutely nothing that could distract us from the kick-off that evening.” He praised the development of Vasco Botelho da Costa's Moreirense, which he describes as a “very attacking” side, able to create overloads in different areas of the pitch.
Source: RTP
Club3 Sep 2026
Farioli confirmed the first call-up of two of his summer signings, Santiago Giménez and João Souza, for the visit of Moreirense: “They are players who have come from different environments and different stories, and neither of them had any minutes during pre-season.” Gabriel Mec, the third recent arrival, is not available.
Source: O Minho
Club3 Sep 2026
Duarte Cunha, an 18-year-old winger from Vila Nova de Cerveira and a world champion with Portugal's under-17s, has been brought into first-team training. The B-team player, whose contract was extended until 2031 in May 2026, was the main talking point of the closed session at the Jorge Costa centre.
Source: O Minho
Club3 Sep 2026
After four matchdays, FC Porto lead the league on their own with 12 points out of a possible 12.
Source: Maisfutebol
Injury2 Sep 2026
The medical bulletin published after Wednesday's session lists five players unavailable or limited: Zaidu, restricted to treatment, along with Vasco Sousa, André Miranda, Oskar Pietuszewski and Samu, all on modified training programmes at Olival.
Source: Portal dos Dragões
Other2 Sep 2026
The refereeing board has appointed António Nobre to referee FC Porto v Moreirense, with Bruno Esteves on VAR.
Source: Maisfutebol
Transfers2 Sep 2026
FC Porto have confirmed the arrival of young Brazilian Gabriel Mec, signed from Grêmio and tied to the Dragons until 2031.
Source: Maisfutebol
Club2 Sep 2026
A Bola takes a positive view of Porto's window: Francesco Farioli got what he needed, with the arrivals of Souza, Santiago Giménez, André Silva, Seko Fofana, Inbeom and Gabriel Mec, and without losing any senior players (Diogo Costa, Alan Varela, Pablo Rosario).
Source: A Bola
Transfers1 Sep 2026
FC Porto have confirmed the sale of Turkish forward Deniz Gül to Galatasaray for €10m, with a further €1m in bonuses possible; the club retains 10% of any future resale. Signed for around €4.5m in 2024, the player leaves the Dragão after 71 appearances and 9 goals, and signs a five-year deal in Turkey.
Source: A Bola
News last verified on 18 Oct 2026. Sources: sports press (L'Équipe, Le Parisien, Foot Mercato, regional press…) and official club websites — see the link on each item.
Editorial content (playing style, mood, absences, external prediction sources) last verified on 3 Sep 2026. The standings/form data above are refreshed automatically — as is the 1/X/2 estimate, recomputed on every view.