Europa League Full time report: Porto vs Rapid Vienna- Porto put three past Vienna
Porto were the second Portuguese team to play on the opening night of fixtures in the Europa League. The team was doing decent domestically but wishes to produce some of their glory on the European stage.
The team that they were going to be facing tonight were Rapid Vienna who finished third in the Austrian League last season. The Porto manager Andre Villas-Boas was more than aware of the threat that the Austrian side had on the counter and prior to the match
he was caught saying:
"Rapid are a team that can surprise, like Braga, because they exploit the mistakes of opponents, they are balanced and have good outputs for the counter-attack, they can be aggressive,'' Villas-Boas said.
"We must be able to maintain our accuracy and concentration. We will have to be patient in possession, without being exposed.
"Of course I prefer to concentrate on attacking football, that's the way we think about the game, but that can leave us exposed.''
The Porto manager was clearly not planning on taking any chances on the night.
Experts believed that Porto were the favourites to win this game, mainly due to their superior experience on the European stage.
The first half of the game was one where both the teams had almost the same amount of possession. However in football what you do with the ball at your feet is what counts.
Porto were by far the better team on the ball. They had eleven more shots at goal when compared to Rapid making them appear far more threatening their Austrian opponents.
Porto took the lead on the twenty sixth minute mark as a result of this bombardment of shots. Cristian Rodriguez passed the ball to Jorge Pires Rolando who took a first time shot from twelve yards out with his right foot and gave the home team the lead.
Two players from the Rapid team were booked for harsh tackling, those two players being Andreas Dober and Thomas Hinum.
The half ended with Porto going into the tunnel the happier of the two teams.
The second half proved to be relatively quite boring when compared to the first. Porto seemed content with their one goal lead and started to pack their bags for the return journey home. What this did was prevent Vienna from doing what they loved the most
and that was to break on the counter.
So Vienna decided to go into unfamiliar territory and take the game to Porto. However that was the biggest mistake that the team could make as they fell into Porto's trap.
On the sixty sixth minute Porto scored their second as a result of Vienna drawing all their men forward to attack. Roque Maicon passed ball to Radamel Falcao Garcia from the right side of the wing and Garcia struck a well timed left footed shot from twelve
yards out to give the home team the two goal advantage.
The match was as good as over in the seventy ninth minute. Ressureicao Ruben Micael got the ball on the right side of the Vienna area and took a few steps before curling a shot into the upper right corner of the goal from twelve yards out.
As the match progressed Porto slowly took their foot of the grass and let the game die out, they still created a few more chances but were looking to conserve their energy for the weekends fixtures. The match eventually ended with Porto winning by three
goals to nil.
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