It’s harder than it looks. In 88 editions of the national championship, Benfica or FC Porto won the two duels between the two of the season in just 20 seasons. And in this context, the dragons have the advantage, as they have won both games in 11 seasons, while the eagles have done so only nine times, but can close that deficit today. To do that, they need to beat their rivals, at Estádio da Luz, and add that victory to that of the first round, in which Rafa Silva’s goal dictated a 1-0 win at Estádio do Dragão.
That is, Germany’s Roger Schmidt can enter a limited gallery of Benfica coaches who have won the two classics, in addition to Ronald Koeman, John Mortimore, Jimmy Hagan, Ted Smith, Lippo Hetzka and Janos Biri, who was the only Benfica player who achieved this feat in two different eras. There were two more times when Benfica won both encounters with FC Porto, but with different coaches: Otto Glória and José Augusto in 1969/70; Rui Vitória and Bruno Lage in 2019/20, the last time this happened. That is to say, it has been 17 years since Koeman achieved this feat alone.
In this century it was more common for FC Porto to achieve double victories in the classic, good for six out of a total of eleven. And in this chapter, Sérgio Conceição was the only coach of the dragons to achieve it twice, precisely in the last two national championship titles he won (2019/20 and 2021/22).
In total, eight Porto coaches achieved the double solo victory, because in addition to Conceição, André Villas-Boas, Jesualdo Ferreira, José Mourinho, António Oliveira, Artur Jorge, Dorival Yutrich and Miguel Siska succeeded. : Julen Lopetegui and José Peseiro in 2015/16; and Anton Vogel and Dezso Gencsy in 1950/51. It should also be noted that before Pinto da Costa took over the presidency of FC Porto, this was a rare achievement, achieved in only three seasons.
Source: DN
