Two VAR penalties, both won by André Silva, and Porto beat Alverca again
Porto opened the defence of their Portuguese title with a 2-0 win over the same side they beat to seal it in May, both goals coming from penalties André Silva won at the Dragão.
Aug 10, 2026
Three months ago FC Porto won the Portuguese league title by beating Alverca 1-0. On Sunday they opened the defence of it by beating Alverca 2-0. Same opponent, same stadium, and a scoreline that flattered the champions more than the 90 minutes did.
Both goals came from the penalty spot. Both penalties were won by the same player. Both were given only after referee Luís Godinho had been sent to the monitor by VAR.
André Silva won two, scored one
Silva is back at the Dragão after nine years away, and it took him nine minutes to win a penalty. Alverca goalkeeper Matheus Mendes came for a cross and caught him with an arm. Godinho waved it away, VAR called him over to the monitor, and Silva took the kick himself. He left Porto for AC Milan in 2017 in a 38 million euro deal, aged 21, and came back in June on a free transfer at 30 when his Elche contract ran out.
The second, a minute before half time, came from a Touaizi pull on Silva inside the box. Same striker, same trip to the monitor, only this time Gabri Veiga took the ball and put it away. Two spot kicks, two VAR interventions, and a 47,558 crowd that spent a good chunk of the first half watching a man in a headset make the decisions.
The opponent Porto keep meeting at the important moments
The symmetry here is genuinely odd. Porto sealed the 2025-26 title on 2 May with a 1-0 win over Alverca, Jan Bednarek heading in a corner on 40 minutes, and they did it with two rounds still to play. It was the club’s 31st Portuguese championship and their first since 2022, and it gave Francesco Farioli the first trophy of his managerial career at 37.
He has since added a second. Porto beat Torreense 1-0 in the Supertaça on 1 August, so Farioli went into Sunday having won both of the competitive matches that bookended his summer. Alverca, promoted to the top flight in 2025 after back-to-back promotions, keep turning up as the opposition on Porto’s better afternoons.
Alverca were closer than 2-0 suggests
Sérgio Ferreira was in the away dugout making his Primeira Liga debut as a head coach, and he was doing it against the club that employed him last season. He won the national under-19 championship with Porto’s youth side before Alverca hired him this summer. Facing the senior team in his first top-flight match is not the gentlest of introductions.
His side had chances. Ian Luccas had a close-range effort from a corner within a minute of the restart and Diogo Costa saved. Chiquinho beat Jakub Kiwior down the left on 73 minutes with a turn that took the defender out of the picture entirely, and Costa got across again. Mendes, the goalkeeper whose arm gave away the first penalty, kept the margin at two with a run of good saves in between.
Porto controlled the ball and the referee’s attention. They did not control the game as comfortably as a 2-0 home win over a promoted side reads on a results page.
The rivals both dropped points first
Matchday one was kind to the champions. Sporting drew 2-2 at Estrela da Amadora on Saturday. Benfica drew 2-2 at home to Académico de Viseu, a side back in the top flight after 37 years, in front of an empty Estádio da Luz. Porto are the only one of the three with three points, and they got them without playing especially well.
That is usually a better sign than the reverse. Champions who win badly in August tend to be fine. It is the ones who lose well who spend September explaining themselves.