An outsider's view as Dragons dominate
FC Porto continued their impressive Champions League campaign with a 3-1 victory against Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel on Wednesday night.
Israeli and BBC World Service journalist Raphael Geller was at the match for PortuGOAL and shares his thoughts on Porto’s performance.
Three take-aways from Maccabi Tel Aviv 1-3 FC Porto
1) André André Man of the Match; Vincent Aboubakar a disappointment
Coming into the match, I was very excited about getting to watch all of Porto’s stars and big names. But, to my surprise at the final whistle, the player who impressed me the most was André André. André, the 26-year-old son of former Porto FC legend António André path to top Portuguese football has not been an easy one. Four years ago André was playing in the third division of Portuguese football and it was unclear if he would ever get a chance to play for Porto. He got his big break when Primeira Liga club Vitória Guimarães signed him in 2012. After three impressive seasons with one of Portugal’s bigger clubs, Portuguese giants Porto decided to sign the midfielder this summer.
Although he was clearly not the most technical player on the pitch, his passion and energy stood out very early. Maccabi Tel Aviv players struggled to keep up with him and slow him down. André provided the assist for Porto’s goal after finding a wide open Cristian Tello on the wing and then beat Maccabi Tel Aviv’s left back Omri Ben Haroush to score a beautiful header and give Porto a 2-0 lead. There was a point in the match where I sat back and realized that André is running the match and that he had complete control of the midfield. To be honest, I didn’t know much about him before this match but now I will surely follow him. My favourite players are not the ones who have the best skills or talent, but the ones you can see are working the hardest on the pitch and doing everything they can to help their team. André is that man for me.
Cameroon international Aboubakar, in contrast, seemed uninterested in the match and extremely unfocused. He had several chances to score and kept making big mistakes. Although his athleticism and strength stood out, I was unimpressed with his ability to finish last night. That said, he was in the right place to be the recipient of many chances and if he can finish better he has a chance to be a very special striker.
2) Porto’s ability to turn the game to their side in seconds
In the first few minutes of the match, it seemed like Porto forgot that they were playing in the Champions League. They let Maccabi Tel Aviv get way too comfortable and create a few chances very early on. Luckily for Porto, Maccabi did not convert on their chances. As soon as Porto realized they hadn’t showed up, they took control and didn’t look back. But you have to wonder what would have happened if they would have played like that against Chelsea or Dynamo Kiev? Surely Kiev or Chelsea would capitalise and Porto would have gotten punished and gone down early. This is something we see with many elite teams when they play weaker sides in the Champions League. But what differentiates the best from the rest is that the best clubs in the world come focused into every match.
3) Maccabi’s struggles / Casillas continues a big draw
It is very clear that Maccabi Tel Aviv are not comfortable in the Champions League. Many pundits across Europe were shocked when Maccabi knocked out Basel in the play-off round of the Champions League. So in some regard, Maccabi are just happy to be in the Champions League. Although many labelled this group as easy, I disagree. Dynamo Kiev are a massive club with a huge budget and home to budding superstar Andriy Yarmolenko. If Chelsea ever find their form (which I suspect they will), they become one of the best teams in the competition. The bottom line is that the top three clubs in this group are just no competition for Maccabi. In fact, the Israeli media had been pondering whether Maccabi would even score a goal in the 6-match campaign.
One of the reasons Maccabi has struggled is the limit to how many foreigners they are allowed to play in Israel. As a result, there have been matches where Maccabi have played 9 Israeli players (last night vs. Porto). With no disrespect to the Israeli players, successful Israeli teams of the past in the Champions League always had a foreign star. This year’s Maccabi team does not.
Israeli clubs have been to the Champions League five times since Israel joined UEFA in 1992. Over the years Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Ajax and other powerhouse clubs have arrived in Israel and encountered very tough competition from the Israeli clubs. Maccabi Haifa shocked the world when they beat Manchester United 3-0 in 2002, while Maccabi Tel Aviv got very respectable results during their first Champions League appearance in 2004 (Beat Ajax and drew with Juventus) and let’s not forget Hapoel Tel Aviv humbled Benfica 3-0 in 2010.
The last thing I wanted to note is that Spanish legend Iker Casillas is still playing at a high level and made several nice saves last night. Not only did the Maccabi crowd witness Casillas’ greatness, hundreds of Israelis went home happy as Casillas agreed to take selfies with them.
Our thanks to Raphael Geller. For more from Raphael follow him on Twitter @Raphael_Geller.
