FC Porto’s sub-15 team heads to Guimarães on Thursday at 11:00 with first place on the line and fresh momentum from a 6-0 home win over Belenenses. The visit to Vitória SC comes in the 14th round of the Fase de Apuramento de Campeão of the Campeonato Nacional de Juniores C, and the next step is simple: keep winning to stay ahead.
That is why João Afonso Sousa’s words carry weight before the trip. The Porto player said the team goes into every match to fight for the three points, adding that it must repeat the performance it produced against Belenenses. He also described Vitória SC as very strong and very competent, a warning that Thursday will ask for the same sharpness Porto showed at home.
Manuel Prata framed the game in even harder terms. He called it extremely demanding, as every match becomes at this stage of the championship, and said the team must be very collective in everything it does, with and without the ball. He also pointed to a familiar standard for Porto’s academy side: stay aggressive going forward and try to keep the goal empty, following the example set by the first team.
The standings explain why the mood around this match is so charged. FC Porto leads with 29 points, but Benfica and SC Braga are just one point behind and have played one more match, while Sporting sits on 26. Porto are top, but not safely so, and any slip in Guimarães could pull the race back into a tighter squeeze than the table already shows.
That is the friction inside Thursday’s fixture. Porto travel as leaders, yet they do so with rivals close enough to punish a draw or defeat, especially with Benfica and SC Braga carrying the advantage of a game in hand. The 6-0 against Belenenses offered a clean reset after the return to competition, but this trip is a different test: away from home, against a side Prata and João both expect to make life difficult.
For Porto, the task is not complicated, only exacting. Win in Guimarães, keep the pressure where it belongs, and turn a narrow lead into something sturdier before the chasing pack gets another chance to close the gap.
