FC Porto and Nottingham Forest faced off on Thursday night at Estadio Do Dragão in Portugal, with both sides looking to take a result back to England next week.

Francesco Farioli’s Porto side dominated the chances but couldn’t take a lead into their away leg, with the game ending 1-1. 

The game saw Vitor Pereira return to Dragoes after managing there from 2011 to 2013, winning two league titles.

He received a hero's welcome, with Porto President André Villas-Boas gifting the Portuguese manager a shirt before the game.

His Forest side hadn’t played a competitive fixture since before the international break, but had been on a good run of form.

They drew with both Manchester City and Fulham, knocked out Midtjylland in the UEFA Europa League and then got a huge 3-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur. 

Porto were also in good form, winning four of their last five fixtures.

The only blemish on their record was a 2-2 draw with FC Famalicão on the previous weekend. 

The tie played out chance wise how you’d expect a league challenging side (Porto are first in the Liga Portugal) against a relegation threatened (Forest currently sit three points above the drop in the Premier League) one to go, with Farioli’s side winning the shot count 16 to six and the expected goals 2.16 to 0.45 (per FotMob’s Opta Data). 

Yet, Forest had the ball in the back of the net more than Porto did and will rue some good opportunities spurned. 

This tactical analysis focuses on how Porto created their chances through their intensity and nice interplay, how Forest settled well after a frantic start and what all this means for the second leg. 

Porto Vs Nottingham Forest Lineups & Formations 

Farioli had opted to rest players for Saturday’s draw with Famalicão, so this tie saw a much-changed side, with seven alterations in total. 

The team remained in his trusted 4-3-3, with Diogo Costa remaining in goals, as did Jan Bednarek and Zaidu Sanusi at left centre-back and left-back, while 41-year-old Thiago Silva and 20-year-old Martim Fernandes came in at right centre-back and right-back, although Fernandes lasted what was an eventful 19 minutes, being replaced by Alberto Costa. 

Seko Fofana, Gabri Veiga and Pablo Rosario were the midfield three, a complete change from their previous game.

The young Italian manager then went with Borja Sainz and Willian Gomes on either side of former Nice striker Terem Moffi. 

Farioli kept his substitutions very like-for-like throughout the game.

Around the hour mark, Victor Froholdt replaced Veiga, Pepe replaced Sainz, and Deniz Gul replaced Moffi.

Fofana was withdrawn on 74’, replaced by Alan Varela. 

Forest made wholesale changes to their starting XI for their 3-0 win against Tottenham. 

Peirera switched to a back three, lining up in a 3-4-3 and made nine changes.

Morgan Gibbs-White in midfield and Murillo in defence were the only two who remained. 

Stefan Ortega started in goals, protected by a trio of Murillo, Morato and Zach Abbott. 

Dan Ndoye and Dilane Bakwa were either side of Ryan Yates and Nicolás Domínguez in midfield, while Gibbs-White and James McAtee played off Chris Wood up top. 

Pereira made two half-time substitutions, bringing on Nikola Milenkovic for Murillo in defence (after some overly keen defending from the Brazilian) and Igor Jesus for Wood, who had struggled to get into the game.

There were further changes with Neco Williams, Omari Hutchinson and Ibrahim Sangaré coming on to replace Bakwa, Gibbs-White and McAtee. 

Porto Vs Nottingham Forest: A Fast Start 

If you expected a cagey start from both sides, then that expectation was blown out of the water before the clock hit one minute. 

The ball breaks to Sainz in the middle of the park after some header tennis below.

Porto have midfield runners, ready to get in behind the defence, a common theme through their good moments in this tie.

Sainz plays a sweeping pass into the right channel.

Suddenly, Porto are in a 2v1 situation, and the Forest defender is stuck in a position where he doesn’t know whether to press the ball and force a bad pass from Fofana or stick with Moffi and risk Fofana running through on goal by himself, leaving him doing neither. 

Fofana plays a perfect pass to Moffi, but his finish is weak and is saved by Ortega.

This was a massive let-off for Forest, who spent the early parts of the game with gaps between their defence that were far too big. 

Ten minutes later, Forest had not learned from their early scare.  

Despite their structure appearing set up, a midfielder was caught out of position by intelligent Porto passing and movement to exploit.

The ball was played into that gap, then pushed out wide.

Porto suddenly has four runners, and the space between Forest’s back three is wide enough to exploit, leading to the opening goal.

Yet, two minutes later, Forest were level, thanks to one of the strangest own goals you’ll ever see.

Porto Vs Nottingham Forest: A Settled Second Half 

Porto dominated much of the second half, creating 1.5 expected goals and three big chances.

Pereira’s changes at half-time managed to nullify a lot of that Porto threat.

The second half was more even in terms of passes, and while Porto still won the shot count, they created far fewer quality chances, with 0.66xG and just one big chance.

Above is a moment from halfway through the second half.

Forest look much different to the images above.

The defenders are closer together, and the wide midfielders are sitting deeper, covering space so that Porto’s midfielders can run in behind. 

Above are Forest’s average positions after the substitutions.