The winds of change blowing fresh life into FC Porto

There was a time when coming to Porto meant entering a gritty, foggy and unsavoury world of hard-working and dodgy men — a place where beauty and gallantry had no room. That time is no more. No club has experienced such a dramatic change in identity in so few months as the Dragões, since André Villas-Boas surprisingly ended Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa’s longstanding reign as club chairman.

It was a bold move by the former manager, one fuelled by years of frustration among many club members that became even more clear in the dramatic events of the club’s general assembly back in November, where several ultra-group members physically and verbally abused many sócios while the president and his board stood still and watched unimpressed. 

That was the moment that propelled a historical change in the club the same way, forty-five years ago, it was the sacking of manager José Maria Pedroto and the subsequent resignation as sports director of Pinto da Costa that eventually led to him being anointed club chairman. There is no doubt that Pinto da Costa was the herald of the club’s golden era, turning a usual underachiever into the country’s leading football force.

But what was initially done as part of a refreshing and revolutionary movement that took Portuguese football decades into the future, had since turned sour. Many believe if Pinto da Costa had stepped down after Mourinho’s Champions League win in 2004, he would surely be heralded worldwide as one of the game’s greatest names. Ambition spoke higher and when a few years on the Golden Whistle scandal broke out, his image was tarnished for good. Still, football gave him another chance to go out on a high, when André Villas-Boas took the side to a remarkable Treble in 2011, followed by back-to-back league titles under Vitor Pereira, the last won in an agonising sprint race against their eternal rivals SL Benfica.

Those were the last breaths of the Porto that Pinto da Costa had built, a club that understood things better than most. They signed shrewdly, had an eye for managers, worked under a closed-quarters club culture and played attacking football. It all ended there. The following decade was not only one of sporting failure but also lacking of leadership. Renowned for being ground-breakers, Porto became a thing of the past. A club in a permanent silent void of ideas and projects where the old guard, just like the Soviet Politburo of the 1980s, waiting for the world to crumble by itself.

Even the appointment of Sérgio Conceição, lauded by many as the last remaining spirit of the old days, had more to do with the lack of ambition to reinvent itself of Pinto da Costa and his football structure than any football concepts that made Porto great since José Maria Pedroto took charge. The 1984 Orwellian philosophy was put to work, creating a deity culture around the duo of Pinto da Costa and Conceição, like the one that kickstarted the whole thing in the late 1970s, but as the world had evolved so did the mindset of supporters, who proved they knew better by electing Villas-Boas in the biggest landslide win in the club’s history.

A clean break

It was a needed change, but one that posed questions that the last months have swiftly been answered. The FC Porto of the last decade seems to exist no more. Historical traits are being brought back to life and so too are names that resound with the supporters deeply, such as the return of Jorge Costa, but this Porto looks forward. Villas-Boas had but a moment to take a stand and few resources to do it. Porto’s financial situation is desperate, the most perilous consequence of Pinto da Costa’s last decade in charge, and still the newly elected chairman boldly assumed the risks and moved forward.

The club revamped their market transfer policy. Out were the close connections with a small group of agents who worked around Pinto da Costa for years, often guaranteeing their players – quality or not – ended up being signed with a huge commission bonus in hand. Not only did Porto move into untapped markets – Deniz Gul’s surprise signing is a great example – but also guaranteed that most of the businesses done during the summer was handled directly by the club chairman and new sports director Andoni Zubizarreta, with no fees paid to agents.

Samu Omorodion’s arrival, one that took everyone by surprise including transfer guru Fabrizio Romano, also proved that deals could be struck without the perennial soap-opera mentality of Portuguese football, a trait of the Pinto da Costa of old. Getting Fábio Vieira on board, albeit on loan, as part of a tough negotiation with Jorge Mendes regarding the future of Francisco Conceição also proved Villas-Boas knew how to meet eye to eye even with the most important football agent in the world.

Conceição had become a problem even before Villas-Boas was elected. The buy-back clause of his loan with Ajax meant the club was supposed to pay double what it earned by selling him to the Dutch side but also granted Francisco a 20% earning of a future transfer deal, set with a ridiculously small release clause of just 30 million euros. When his father was eventually dismissed by the incoming chairman and his until-then assistant Vitor Bruno ended up being appointed as his successor, everyone at the club knew having Francisco in the squad would be troublesome. How to deal with it proved Villas-Boas’s ability to command respect. He didn’t let Mendes’s pressure or Conceição’s crying cloud his path. In the end, the Juventus loan deal not only covered the money the club had invested in buying the player back but also guaranteed a much-needed sale would eventually take place in the following summer. In the meantime, replacing a player who would continuously harass the new manager with a youth team icon, Gonçalo Borges, who badly needs a revamp in his career shows how the club has once again learned to think two steps ahead.

The assistant with his own ideas

Vitor Bruno, Sérgio Conceição’s assistant manager for the past decade, is also a breath of fresh air for those who suffered through the former manager’s rants, and abuse of players, supporters, referees and opponents and someone who comes to represent the ethos of what the club was supposed to be when in the Dragão some still believed in Camelot. Son of Vitor Manuel, a historical manager of smaller teams in Portugal’s top tier, Bruno has become renowned over the years for always wearing shorts at every matchday, so much so that one of the first questions posed in his press conference presentation was if he would keep on doing it, disregarding protocol. He duly did.

In contrast to Conceição, who always tried to be the protagonist much like his mentor Jorge Jesus, Bruno doesn’t enjoy the limelight. He, like so many successful Porto coaches of the past, puts the club and the squad first and even when he guided Porto to one of the most unexpected comebacks of its history, overcoming a 3-0 deficient to beat Sporting 4-3 in the season-opening Supercup final, he never took centre stage to claim the merits. Many would have expected Villas-Boas to bring in a renowned foreign manager, the same way he did with Zubizarreta as sporting director, but in the end, the board went for the low-cost option but also for the human approach.

Bruno is everything Conceição is not. A man who cares for players, who casts an interested eye over the youth setup and who abides by the club’s needs instead of imposing his will at all costs. He has proven to be tactically apt but in his first year in charge will probably meet some bumps along the way.

Porto supporters are aware this is the ground zero of a new age and it will hardly be a bed of roses. The club departed with several key figures of past seasons and brought in some new faces while allowing some outcasted players from last year to finally take centre stage. It’s an extremely young squad but one that desperately wants to prove itself. The same way its manager does. And the very same way it’s new chairman expects to. The winds in the north are changing. Small tweaks are being put into place in the relationship with supporters, abandoned for a long time, a closer bond that answers back to many years of disillusion.

Many of those changes may have passed under the radar but leave a trace of hope of better days to come. Such as the importance given to the newly created women’s team – something Pinto da Costa never contemplated – rewarded with a new national record attendance for their first home match at the Dragão. The financial worries are still there and there’s no denying it will be the new board’s greatest challenge, especially after the last days of the transfer market didn’t end with key players like Pepê, Galeno or Diogo Costa being sold to reduce the huge financial deficit as Portuguese clubs are used to.

Still, no one is panicking. Like any new love relationship, the future looks bright and prosperous even if clouds are forming in the skies. This new FC Porto will surely sail through hard storms over the next few months but, somehow, there’s a feeling they will be okay.

Not having Champions League football might help. There’s the financial backstep of course and a sense of lost glamour, but for such a young side with an untrained first-team manager perhaps the Europe League might be best suited. Villas-Boas knows that all too well since his glorious year in charge also ended with his Porto conquering the trophy in an all-Portuguese final in Dublin. Winning a European trophy might be a step too far for such a new project but also sets expectations high.

Reality check

Yet, all eyes will be on the league championship, and after a promising start, the 2-0 defeat at Sporting on Saturday proved the side is still miles away from becoming the nation’s leading force.

However, what Bruno’s Porto has proven in his first month is that, unlike its predecessor, the team has finally come to grips with itself and they are now able to assume their favouritism against smaller sides who usually sit deep and wait for the break. Playing against those sides proved to be Conceição’s Achilles’ heel over the years and may have cost him a couple of league titles along the way. Bruno is well aware and so are supporters. If Porto manages to be ruthless in thirty of the thirty-four league rounds, then they are much closer to winning the league than by just beating the likes of Sporting and Benfica. For a project that has just kick-started that should be the aim. Be the best when they need to be and put up a good fight when facing sides who might still be a small step ahead right now.

Many times in the club’s history that formula proved enough to trigger celebrations in the Aliados square in May and that is what Villas-Boas is probably hoping for right now. Porto may not look so grey and bitter as it did in recent years but the historical resilience and fighting spirit of a club and city moulded in granitic stone remains well alive. The North still remembers what made them great once and that back-to-basics philosophy is what will take them forward.

It may come as a shock for many who expected a descent into oblivion for the club once the Pinto da Costa era ended but this might be the season when the Dragon flies high once again.   

By Miguel Lourenço Pereria, author of “Bring Me That Horizon – A Journey to the Soul of Portuguese Football”.