After tying the first leg in the Champions league 1-1 back in February, FC Porto from Portugal went all out today as they defeated the Swiss team of FC Basel on a 4-0 score. Porto looked stronger than ever on the field on Tuesday night and Basel’s defense was just too weak to stop them. Goalkeeper Tomas Vaclik had a couple of chances to get the ball out as his gloves tapped the ball a couple of times as the ball was going in but it was not enough as Vaclik and his team were kicked out of the Champions League playoffs.
The first goal for FC Porto came in the fourteenth minute when Porto was awarded a free kick just outside the box. Midfielder Yacine Brahimi stepped up to take the free kick and the ball went easily over the wall and past goalkeeper Vaclik to make it an early 1-0 lead (2-1 on aggregate).
After the first goal there was a scary situation as goalkeeper Fabiano and defender/captain Danilo both went for the ball. Fabiano came outside of the box and as he went for the ball, he crashed into Danilo and bumped him hard on the cheekbone. This caused Danilo to be knock out but moments later, after being examined by the physio team, was ridden out on the stretcher and gave a thumbs up that he was ok.
In the 34 minute, Vincent Aboubakar had a chance to make it a 2-0 lead as he brought down the ball with his head and went straight for a shot on goal, but the ball went just wide of the right side of the post and kept the game at 1-0.
The second goal came in a minute just after the second half had started. Yacine Brahimi was the assister as he found the Mexican player, Hector Herrera just outside the box. Hector Herrera took the opportunity as he was not surrounded by any defender and curved it past goalkeeper Tomas Vaclik as it deflected of his glove to make it 2-0 (3-1 on aggregate).
In the 55 minute, it was Porto once again that was able to get themselves on the scoreboard and make it 3-0 (4-1 on aggregate) on a free kick taken by Casemiro. Porto was given a free kick about 35 yards from the goal and Casemiro stepped up to take the free kick. Casemiro did not hesitate to kick the ball hard enough to get it past Vaclik and make the lead even bigger.
Vincent Aboubakar was able to get his goal in the 75 minute. Vincent came in to replace Jackson Martinez, who did not play today, and took about three defenders from the middle of the field. He found the opportunity to shoot for goal and was able to get it past Vaclik, who got a tap on the ball but was not enough to keep the ball from going in. Porto led 4-0 (5-1 on aggregate) with only 15 minutes to go.
By the end of the game, Porto made Basel look like a bunch of college kids just playing soccer for the fun of it. Porto was able to advance to the next round of the Champions League and will probably have a tough opponent coming up in the Quarterfinals but the way they have been playing they can step up to be the dream team they used to be back in the early 2000’s. The man of the match goes out to Yacine Brahimi who opened up the scoring sheet for Porto in the first half and also assisted Hector Herrera to add to the scoreboard in the second half.
Photo by: Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images