Champions League
Porto 2-1 Apoel Nicosia
Attendance: 30,399
After the whistle stop visit to Milan, it was a 2.5 hour flight to Portugal and this time the destination was Oporto or, more specifically, the Estadio do Dragao. Another champions league group game but this one wasn't as exciting as the Inter game. Apoel basically came to Portugal looking not to lose.
Porto started brightly but were stunned on 22 minutes when, on their first attack of game, the Cypriots took the lead. Chrysostomos Michail's cross from the left was, under pressure from Constantinos Charalambides, turned into his own net by Alvaro Pereira. The lead only lasted for 12 minutes when a defensive mistake allowed the ball to be fed to Brazillian striker Hulk, who shot low into the net. Porto had further chances to increase their lead before half time but Bruno Alves and Mariano Gonzalez were wastful.
The second half was barely two minutes old when Marios Elia was (harshly) adjudged to have handled and Hulk converted the spot kick. Porto continued to hve chances but could not finish Nicosia off. Apoel eventually decided to come out of their own half and had a couple of half chances but, even after Porto's Gonzalez was red carded, they could not force an equaliser. The heavy rain could not spoil my enjoyment of being here tonight, the only thing that did was that the Porto didn't issue a match programme...pah!
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| Hulk tucks away his penalty to give Porto the win. |
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