{"id":9295,"date":"2024-03-12T06:38:06","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T06:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9295"},"modified":"2024-03-13T12:33:13","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T12:33:13","slug":"tras-os-defensores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9295","title":{"rendered":"Tr\u00e1s os Defensores"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Two hours or so inland from the city of Porto lies the northeastern Portuguese province of Tr\u00e1s-os-Montes, or Behind the Hills.  I drove that route nearly 30 years ago but recalled it this week because Arsenal will have been working on some clever ways of getting in behind the Porto defenders to prevent a recurrence of the away leg when they failed to score a solitary goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that first leg, played in Porto on February 21st, the home side scored in the last minute of stoppage time to take a one goal lead coming into Tuesday night\u2019s deciding game in the Champions League Round of 16. Arsenal struggled to create many attacking opportunities, and the laissez faire referee allowed Porto to frustrate the Gunners with a nearly constant stream of borderline fouls.  The match was Arsenal\u2019s most difficult and disjointed of 2024 to date, but the one goal deficit leaves the Gunners in decent position to score a come-from-behind victory and advance to the quarterfinal round for the first time since 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mikel Arteta set the stage in his pre-match presser, saying \u201cYou can\u2019t wait in these situations, you have to go and make things happen and that\u2019s the approach tomorrow.\u201d  He added, \u201cNow we know (Porto) a bit better. We have played these kind of games many times in the Premier League, we played one two days ago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know that Brentford, who Arsenal defeated over the weekend, were taking a page from the Porto playbook, attempting to prevent Arsenal from playing their free-flowing football. We also know that Arsenal figured out a way to score two goals in that game, and should have had at least one penalty if the referee had gone by the rule against yanking on an opponent\u2019s shirt in the penalty area and pulling them to the ground, so assuming that Porto play similarly (or even if they don\u2019t) the Gunners should be in with a decent shout of overturning their deficit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Porto<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Porto is the most decorated Portuguese team in Europe with seven trophies won, including the 2004 Champions League and the 1987 European Cup.  As one of the big three clubs of Portugal, Porto have been regular participants in UEFA competitions.  They have qualified for European competition in every season since 1974\u201375, and share second place in the total number of Champions League group stage appearances with Bayern Munich, one less than Barcelona and Real Madrid. Porto are third in the Primeira Liga table with 55 points, trailing Sporting by four points, but sport the league\u2019s stingiest defence having conceded only 17 times, three fewer than the next stingiest club, second placed Benfica.  They last played on Thursday when they defeated Portimonense away by 3-0 in the southern beach town of Portim\u00e3o.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first leg Arsenal had no attempts on target and their last minute sloppiness put them in something of a hole when a draw was looking a certainly. But many a Premier League side has tried to stop them from scoring multiple goals in the last two months and none has succeeded so they have reason to feel confident. But they need to defend staunchly for 90 minutes and every second of time added on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At left back Zinchenko is back from injury having come off the bench against Brentford, and he is probably the better choice for this match, to deliver some smart balls in behind the defense, although Kiwior has been very good recently as a more traditional left back. Gabriel Jesus also made a successful return recently, but Gabriel Martinelli remains out with a cut foot, so the starting team should look something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya
White – Saliba – Gabriel – Zinchenko
Odegaard – Rice – Havertz
Saka – Jesus – Trossard<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018holic pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s our moment to shine. This is our home leg and we must play to our potential, and show the Portuguese as little hospitality as Arsenal received in the first leg, but I think we will manage to do all of those things. Arsenal 3 Porto 1 is my prediction, with Bukayo Saka getting in behind os defensores and scoring a late beauty to moot any consideration of extra time and penalties, and send Arsenal to march on to the quarterfinals. This young squad is due for just such a coming of age moment. If so, be sure you have emerged from behind the couch with two eyes open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have a good one, \u2018holics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two hours or so inland from the city of Porto lies the northeastern Portuguese province of Tr\u00e1s-os-Montes, or Behind the Hills.  I drove that route nearly 30 years ago but recalled it this week because Arsenal will have been working on some clever ways of getting in behind the Porto defenders to prevent a recurrence of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9295"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9300,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9295\/revisions\/9300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}