Jesualdo’s hat-trick at Dragão

As the season come to an end, all the European leagues come to closure, this weekend was the Portuguese League that’s got a new champion. Once again FC Porto as did it. For the fourth time in a row, in the last three years with Jesualdo Ferreira at the helm, ‘Dragões’ have conquered the first spot. The soon to be 63 years old, is living his best professional period in a long, hardworking but always very competent career. With only three championships under his belt, he’s seen as the keystone of this year’s title.
Personally I’m not fond of Jesualdo’s counter attack style of play – but becoming the only Portuguese coach to win three in a row most mean something. But let’s talk about the team he command, last summer Porto lost two of the three most influential players, the man that carries the team from the right went to Chelsea (Jose Bosingwa), the most creative one – usually used has a left winger parted to Inter (Ricardo Quaresma) and Lucho Gonzales stayed for another season. The cerebral Argentinean had to cope with the fans expectations in the first couple of months.
These changes meant Jesualdo had to build a more collective team, without the brilliance of Quaresma or Bosingwa continuous runs, Porto became a new team. The basic scheme remains the same, Portos’s favorite figurine his the 4x3x3, with a typical defensive line, one defensive midfielder, two in the center, with the one on the right side with orders to attack trough the line – usually Lucho’s mission – and three players on attack – all of the them used to start offensive moves on the middle line. The one in the center (Hulk or Lisandro) tends to get outside the box to open space for quick entries (usually Hulk or Lisandro, once again) from any flank, the other forward is usually a pure winger (Cristian Rodriguez) – the three make constant changes confusing their opponent positions.
The team prefers to play in constant counter attack, they don’t fell comfortable with the ball and have a lot of difficulties to crack tide defenses – which is shown by their impressive away records, but fragile home performances. They are a purely collective team, a squad that don’t depend on any star players and besides Hulk or Rodriguez run’s doesn’t have any man capable of individually solve a game – they have more than six players with five or more goals, and base the success on a high pressure system, direct style of play and frantic pace on the offensive.

Tip: The only team to make Man Utd go to the limit to overcome a leg in the Champions League deserves a mention. I point out the coach Jesualdo Ferreira because he has build an extraordinary team without star players – they’ve won four titles in a row and went out of the CL for just a goal against the actual champions. I don’t like the style they use, but I can’t argue with the results.