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Vintage Porto: Kings of Europe
Porto took the Champions League trophy back to Portugal by thrashing Monaco 3-0 in the final in Gelsenkirchen.
Just 12 months after winning the UEFA Cup at Celtic's expense, Jose Mourinho's side added an even greater prize at the AufSchalke Arena. They soaked up the pressure and then struck three times in devastating fashion on the counter against an increasingly dispirited Monaco. Mourinho, tipped to take his coaching talents to either Chelsea or Liverpool for next season, showed the Premiership why he is so coveted by planning this night of glory for one of the Continent's lesser lights in meticulous fashion. Monaco almost took a shock lead in the third minute when Ludovic Giuly beat the offside trap and only an alert dash from his line by Vitor Baia prevented a certain goal.
Monaco continued to make most of the running but suffered a cruel blow when playmaker Giuly limped off with a groin strain to be replaced by striker Dado Prso. But the over-zealous linesman denied Fernando Morientes a golden chance when he flagged the Spanish striker offside even though Bernardi's chip had looked perfectly timed. Having been content to absorb all this time, Porto struck in devastating fashion six minutes before half-time. Carlos Alberto won a free kick and when Paulo Ferreira's cross came into the box, the Brazilian striker reacted quickest with a hooked shot on the turn when the ball bobbled loose. The first-half goal hero was replaced before the hour mark by Dmitri Aleinichev as Porto set out their stall to sit on their lead. But the linesman continued to play the pivotal role in the match twice flagging Morientes offisde when TV relays disproved his judgement. Monaco switched to a three-man attack when Shabani Nonda came on for Cisse. They continued to force the pace and piled up the corners only to be hit by another devastating counter-attack on 71 minutes. Deco sent Alenichev away and was in space on the edge of the area to receive the Russian's return pass and slot home with calm authoirty.
Five minutes later, ragged Monaco were tortn apart again as Aleinichev hammered a volley past the exposed Roma. Afterwards Mourinho said: "This is the best way to finish my career with Porto. "In two and a half years we have won everything. "The club was sleeping a little bit [two and a half years ago] and it has woken up very, very well." |
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