Super Cup: Was the final as balanced as Jesus claimed?

meThis was one of the most relevant statements after the Cândido de Oliveira Super Cup, which Porto beat Benfica 2-0 in Aveiro. For the “eagles” coach, Jorge Jesús, what defined the winner of the match was only the effectiveness and objectivity with which the “dragons” approached this game and that little separated the two sets. Was it really so?

“The two parts were balanced. Porto was better in making decisions and the difference was in effectiveness ”(Jorge Jesus)

A look at the match statistics seems to indicate that, in fact, there were many occasions when the teams coincided, but It seems somewhat reductive to consider only effectiveness as a decision factor for the meeting., although it is evident that this was one of the axes of the meeting, as well as “objectivity”, as Jorge Jesús himself pointed out, there with apparent reason.

Big offensive difference

If the issue is offensive effectiveness, we first have to look at those moments and then the differences were clear.

• OR Porto shot more, even with slightly less possession (48%) and fewer actions with the ball in possession (since it legitimizes the words of Jesus when he speaks of objectivity)
• Porto players registered 438 actions in possession, ball runs, and shot 12 times, so fired one shot every 36.5 actions performed. Benfica, for its part, needed 69.7 of those actions (488 in total) to finish.
• Six of Benfica’s seven shots in the game came from outside the area, revealing the “embodied” difficulties to enter the Porto area.
• The difference in the number of ball actions in large areas was overwhelming: 25 for Porto, four only for the “eagles” – here was the main problem of the inhabitants of Lisbon.

[ A diferença de xG não deixa dúvidas sobre um dos aspectos que separou as equipas ]

🏆🇵🇹 75 ‘| Porto 1-0 Benfica

FCP reached 20 ball actions in the SLB area, when SLB only has 3 in the FCP area!# Super Cup #FCPSLB pic.twitter.com/3s2ak4WAW8

– GoalPoint.pt (@_Goalpoint) December 23, 2020

Porto less “lace”

• As we mentioned, Porto needed fewer actions in possession to finish, which denotes a pragmatism and objectivity that is also reflected in dribbling: Benfica “rendilhou” plus his game, with 25 dribbling attempts, against only 13 for the “dragon”.
• Of these, goalkeepers completed eight (62% effective) and benfiquistas 14 (56%).

“Dragon” more competent in the defensive process

Sérgio Conceição spoke at the end of the match of a solid team defensively – as opposed to a defensive formation – and the numbers support him:

• OR Porto ended the game with many more attempts to disarm. It was 52 against 30 for Benfica, and also in the quality of that gesture the team was better.
• Throughout the “dragons” added 25 effective tackles against only 15 of the “eagles”, which begins to point us to the defensive weaknesses of Jorge Jesús’ team.
• The same applies to interceptions, with Porto players finishing 21, against 14 for Benfica fans. But there is also data from the defensive action zones that says a lot about the teams.

Benfica with a “hole” in the midfield

Throughout the game, Benfica’s inability to competently press in the most advanced areas of the field was notorious, cutting off the first moments of the “blue and white” construction:

• Porto recorded nine defensive actions in the “red” midfield; Meanwhile he Benfica did not exceed six in the other side.
• The Lisboa added many more defensive actions in the first third, no less than 43, against 34 of the “dragons”, which indicates that they have solved defensive problems in much more remote areas …
• … something that matches the number of defensive actions in midfield: Benfica made only 15, against 26 of Invicta’s men, which, compared to the previous number, reflects the Difficulties of the benfiquistas to “filter” the game in midfield, leaving most of the work to the defense.
• As defensive actions in the last third, offense, – four for Porto, one for Benfica – supports the idea suggested by the above values.

Many other statistics stand out from this meeting, most pointing to a certain balance in moments and actions, but these were the most “unbalanced” and their reading helps to draw some conclusions about what the 2020 Super Cup was in Aveiro.