Watching the clássico from abroad? Porto host Benfica at 20:30 Lisbon time on Sunday
Round seven of the Portuguese league at the Estádio do Dragão. Porto arrive with six wins from six and two goals conceded, Benfica two points behind and fresh from a first ever win over Milan at San Siro.
Sunday, 20:30 Lisbon time, Estádio do Dragão. It is the season’s first meeting between the two clubs at the top of the Portuguese league, and Benfica’s own fixture list carries the date and the kick-off for the round-seven trip north.
If you are reading this from Newark, Toronto, London or Paris: Lisbon and the UK and Ireland share a clock right now, so it is 20:30 there too. That makes it 21:30 across most of continental Europe, 16:30 in Rio, 15:30 on the US and Canadian east coast, 12:30 in British Columbia, and 05:30 on Monday morning in Sydney.
The numbers each side brings
Porto have won all six league games they have played and conceded twice in the process, which is an unusual defensive record this early. Benfica sit on sixteen points from five wins and a draw, two behind.
The arithmetic at the Dragão is clean. A Benfica win puts them top on their own. A draw keeps Porto two clear. A Porto win opens a five-point gap, which settles nothing in September but changes the mood of the next six weeks entirely.
Form and fatigue
Benfica come in off a good week abroad. On Wednesday they won 2-0 at San Siro and beat Milan for the first time in three competitive meetings, sixty-three years after the first two attempts — both European Cup finals, both lost. Four days between Milan and Porto is enough recovery, though not generous for a squad that travelled.
For Porto the question is whether six rounds of defensive control survives the best attack they have faced. Two goals conceded in six games tends to correct upwards once the big fixtures start arriving. Sunday is a reasonable place to find out when.
By Vasco Almada
Image: Alberto Brandolini / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
