“Many changes. We had a day less rest than FC Porto”

O coach Bruno Pinheiro said today that the Academic of Viseu will present a modified team relative to the I Liga in the visit to FC Porto, in the final rooms of the Cup of the Football League, which aims to win.

After stalling on the Benfica field, at the opening of the championship (2-2), and winning at the Sporting stadium on Sunday (2-1), also for the I Liga, the Beirões move for the first time in the season to the Dragon Stadium, with “humility and ambition”, but “different actors” to the triumph in Alvalade.

“ We're gonna have a lot of changes. We had a day less rest than FC Porto. We're still recovering athletes, so we have a sense of who's more or less available. We have game on Sunday, with the Ave River [for the I League]. We have to manage. We don't want to risk injuries. We believe the remaining players of the squad ", said in the preview to the game scheduled for 20:30, run in a hotel unit in Lousada.

Although the ‘dragons’ add up to nine internal triumphs, all for the championship, the ‘timoner’ assumes the desire to be present in the ‘final four’ of the League Cup, marked for Leiria, between January 5 and 9, 2027, and even confesses the desire to win the competition, although the priority is the I League, in which the Viseans occupy the sixth place, with 17 points.

“ We would really like to win the League Cup and we want to win it. ... It's a legitimate ambition to be in a race and want to win it, but the biggest focus is the championship. It's many years out of the I League. We want to ensure maintenance as soon as possible, to ensure better conditions to aim more in the future, being competitive not only in one test, but in two or three”, he said.

Aware that it takes “a component of happiness” to win in the stadiums of FC Porto, Benfica, Sporting or Sporting Braga, the coach, 49 years old, promises to follow the “same formula” tactics of games in Luz and Alvalade, even because the changes operated in the reception to the ‘blues and whites’, in the fourth round of the championship, resulted in a 3-0 defeat.

“In defeat at home with FC Porto, we had a different formula in the first 25 minutes and left us ‘caro’. We wanted to do something different, because FC Porto had not lost with anyone in I League. It didn't work out for us. We will follow the formula we follow in the Light and in Alvalade ", promised.

At the command of a set with “moral and trust”, the result of the five consecutive triumphs for the I League, the coach of the ‘viriates’ proved to be “very quiet” with the possibility of losing players in the ‘winter market’, fruit of the appreciation and potential interest of clubs with higher budgets.

“Portuguese football needs these sales. Being a coach with an ambition to win, I have to adapt to these realities. To this day, in the Academic of Viseu, no one has mentioned the need to sell. It's a financially stable club, which will only sell for fair values. If there are sales, they open ‘doors’ to other players to help us meet the goals,” he said.

The Académico de Viseu visits FC Porto, in play of the final rooms of the League Cup, scheduled for Wednesday, at 20:30, in the Stadium of the Dragon, in Porto, with arbitration of Sérgio Guelho, of the Guard association.