Tonight, Porto are in England for the second leg of a Champions League round-of-16 tie with a slender one-goal advantage.
The last time they were in this situation, back in 2004, Jose Mourinho’s side completed a famous aggregate victory over Manchester United — and went on to win the European Cup.
That Porto side remains the last from outside the major European leagues to win the trophy. Two decades on, this is how they did it — featuring insight from two of the club’s heroes, captain Jorge Costa, and centre-forward Derlei.
Jose Mourinho was always a careerist with big ambitions. At his previous club, Uniao de Leiria, he motivated his players in an unusual way, by telling them that if they performed well, he would earn a job at one of Portugal’s big three clubs, and then bring some of them with him. He stuck to his word after being appointed by Porto in 2002, signing three of his old boys: left-back Nuno Valente, central midfielder Tiago, and Derlei.
Advertisement
“My relationship with Mourinho had a lot to do with timing,” Derlei says. “It was the start of his career and a moment of ascension in mine. He was looking for an opportunity to show what he could do and I was the same.
“He helped me so much during that time at Uniao de Leiria. I could play with freedom and score lots of goals. Then he took me to Porto and I proved I could live up to his expectations and show everyone he had made a great choice. He was always very loyal to me, and it worked both ways. It was a special relationship. I felt a connection with him right from the start. I always knew that he believed in me. He always told me so, and it gave me so much confidence.”
But even the ultra-confident Mourinho didn’t believe Porto had a serious chance of winning the Champions League in 2003-04. His ambitions were more modest. First, he wanted to progress to the knockout stage of the competition. Second, he wanted to defeat one of Europe’s major forces. That, you suspect, was about putting himself on the map more than anything else, opening up the possibility of an even bigger job. So when Porto were drawn against Manchester United — at that point, third in UEFA’s coefficient rankings behind Real Madrid and Barcelona — it was the chance to record a historic victory over Sir Alex Ferguson, European football’s most revered manager. This, incidentally, was the first season after UEFA had ditched the unloved second group stage, replacing it with a knockout format from the round of 16. It meant more shocks.
When coaching Porto in European competition, Mourinho was in his element. More than at any other stage in his coaching career, he assumed the role of underdog. Before the first leg against United, the first European game at the new Estadio do Dragao, he told his players their objective in a typically Mourinho way — the target for the first game was based around the target for the second game. Mourinho didn’t want Porto to require victory at Old Trafford. So while a one-goal victory would be ideal, a goalless draw would also be suitable, in the knowledge a 1-1 or a 2-2 in the second leg would take them through on away goals.
Advertisement
But Porto didn’t play like they wanted a goalless draw. They attacked. In part, because Mourinho wasn’t sure they could defend — the absence of Costinha, the holding midfielder, meant Mourinho didn’t want long periods of soaking up pressure. Porto played direct football, but they played the majority of the game in the opposition half. Both goals in a 2-1 victory came from Benni McCarthy, including an outstanding headed winner.
9⃣ Porto hero Benni McCarthy scored a super double against Manchester United in 2004, including this towering header! @bennimccarthy17 | @FCPorto | #UCL pic.twitter.com/NLuIgcj6Jo
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) March 24, 2021
McCarthy was essentially Porto’s only major signing the previous summer. He was a replacement for Tottenham-bound Helder Postiga, and cost a fraction of the price. Mourinho was happy with the upgrade, saying McCarthy was, unlike Postiga, a ‘natural-born goalscorer’. But maybe more important was that, after Porto had won the UEFA Cup in 2002-03, they kept a settled side together and changed as little as possible. “In terms of the quality of our play, 2002-03 had been our best season,” says the side’s captain, Jorge Costa. “We played good football and had a very united squad. We were friends, not just team-mates. It wasn’t a squad that needed altering and that ended up being a positive.”
At Old Trafford, Porto went behind to a Paul Scholes goal, which put United 1-0 up on the night and ahead on away goals. Then Scholes should have had another, which was incorrectly disallowed for offside. If the linesman had kept his flag down, the last 20 years of European football history might have been very different.
Favourable offside decisions became a theme of Porto’s European Cup campaign. Throughout the knockout stages, they repeatedly benefited from incorrect offside decisions, in part because their defence was so convincing in the way they stepped up simultaneously and appealed. In a VAR age, it simply wouldn’t work, but Porto — who used a high line in every knockout game — managed to get decisions they didn’t deserve.
The partnership at centre-back between Costa and Ricardo Carvalho, in particular, worked brilliantly. “We had different characteristics,” explains Costa. “I was more of a leader, more aggressive, more experienced; Ricardo was younger, faster, more laid-back. He wasn’t always that focused. But the things I lacked, Ricardo had, and vice-versa. We complemented each other very well.” With the underrated pairing of Valente and Paulo Ferreira on either side, Porto had the most cohesive back line in the competition.
That owed much to Mourinho’s coaching. The peculiar thing about this Porto side was that, with the arguable exception of the brilliant No 10 Deco (a Brazilian who had recently switched allegiance to Portugal and debuted with the winner against his homeland), the star was Mourinho.
When Ferguson complained about Porto’s diving throughout the first leg, Mourinho responded that he too would be annoyed if his side had been taught a lesson by a team “which cost one-tenth of the price”. The verbal spat between Mourinho and Ferguson attracted more attention than any element of the on-pitch battle. When Tim Howard fumbled McCarthy’s late free kick and allowed Costinha to turn home the rebound, Mourinho famously sprinted down the touchline at Old Trafford and took the limelight again.
📅 OTD in 2004…
Jose Mourinho ran down the Old Trafford touchline to celebrate Porto's last-minute equaliser against Man Utd 😳
An absolutely iconic #UCL moment 🤣 pic.twitter.com/PjZlXbXaXp
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) March 9, 2021
At this point, Mourinho was not a defensive manager and, while it is often suggested that he hasn’t evolved the game as much as other contemporary managers, he contributed to the game’s progression in two different ways. First, he took opposition scouting to new levels. Second, he was the foremost practitioner of ‘periodisation’, the Portuguese concept that abandoned the concept of separating technical, tactical and fitness drills, and incorporated all those aspects together.
Advertisement
“I loved his training methods,” says Derlei. “We always worked with a ball, even when we were doing fitness work. That was different to what I was used to. And when he set up the team, he would position every player and explain, in this playful way, what he wanted from them.
“It meant that the team didn’t take long to click. We had these automatisms that he was able to install. We could all see that he was a very special coach. From the very beginning, every player in the squad had faith in him. The way he set up the team gave me this sense of freedom.”
The 2003-04 Champions League was an extraordinarily unpredictable tournament, with the quarter-final stage being its peak. The consensus was that AC Milan would prevail over Deportivo La Coruna, Real Madrid would defeat Monaco, and Arsenal, on their way to an unbeaten league season, would see off Chelsea. Oh, and Porto vs Lyon was the tie of outsiders with no serious contender to win the competition.
Not only were those expectations turned on their heads — Deportivo, Monaco and Chelsea all won their ties — but the ‘other’ tie would produce the eventual European champion.
Mourinho had anticipated a meeting with Milan in the semi-final, as they led Deportivo 4-1 from the first leg. When he heard the news of Milan’s 4-0 collapse in Spain, he immediately went up to his reserve goalkeeper Nuno Espirito Santo, who had been signed by Mourinho from Deportivo, to inform him he would be returning to his old club. Deportivo had found little use for Nuno, generally sending him out on loan. Nuno — now Nottingham Forest’s head coach — was delighted to hear the news. “Mister, then we’re in the final!” he responded. At that point, Porto realised the expectations had risen, and so had the pressure.
Deportivo, however, were an excellent side. “They had put in an extraordinary performance in their quarter-final,” remembers Costa. “People look at Lyon and Deportivo through a 2024 lens and don’t appreciate how good they were. But Lyon were a super side, and Deportivo had a dream team; they had won the Spanish title (in 1999-2000) and were incredibly strong.”
Porto and Deportivo drew 0-0 in Portugal, in what was — at the time — a typically tight, tense first leg, with neither side wanting to make a mistake. The game was cagey, certainly, but Mourinho had not yet become renowned as a manager who played negative football, or parked the bus. Porto successfully used a high defensive line and dominated possession in 10 of their 13 Champions League matches that season.
“I completely disagree that Jose Mourinho became a defensive coach,” says Costa. “Above all, Mourinho is intelligent and pragmatic. He finds a way to get the best out of teams and players. Football fans want good football but a coach has to understand what he has at his disposal and get the most out of the players he has.”
Advertisement
The return leg, at the Riazor, was a huge challenge for Porto. Although a short journey in European terms — a mere three-hour coach trip up the western coast of Iberia — Deportivo boasted one of the most intimidating arenas in the Champions League and had a formidable home record. The goalless draw from the first leg ensured a score draw would be enough to send Porto through on away goals. In the end, Mourinho’s team won 1-0. Once again, they dominated possession.
“We had to control the game by holding onto the ball, never letting the opponent take the initiative, and never, never staking everything on counter-attacking,” Mourinho later said. “Usually, teams visiting the Riazor try to cope with the initial pressure for 20 minutes. If they hold on without conceding, then they open up. We didn’t do that. As soon as the game began, we got hold of the ball, and didn’t give them a chance to put us under pressure.”
Porto started in their customary 4-3-1-2 shape in Europe, and Costinha performed a superb marking job on Juan Carlos Valeron, Deportivo’s wonderful playmaker. When Porto started to have problems down their left flank in the second half, Mourinho moved Derlei — who had made a miraculous recovery from a cruciate ligament injury in December — to play as a left-winger, creating a lopsided but effective system that forced Deportivo right-back Manuel Pablo to retreat.
“What he likes in players is tactical discipline,” says Derlei. “I had that, and that made the difference. I was a striker, but I always wanted to help out with the defensive side of the game. It meant that he looked at me and my work with different eyes. Beyond that, I was a penalty box player, always in the area, looking for a chance to get a shot off. That’s what he looked for in a forward. He used to help me with my positioning in the early days, which really improved me as a footballer.”
At the same time, Deco started to play from the right, turning Porto into more of the 4-3-3 Mourinho favoured in domestic competition. Those changes, allowing Deco and Derlei to attack from the flanks, created two major chances in the second half, while Deco subsequently won the crucial penalty, which was dispatched by Derlei for the tie’s only goal.
It must also be noted that Porto sailed very close to the wind in disciplinary terms. Going into that second leg, they had six players — Vitor Baia, Costa, Carvalho, Costinha, Maniche and Deco — who were all a booking away from missing the final. In the game itself, Pedro Mendes and Carlos Alberto were also cautioned. But all of the eight survived — a year after the 2003 final was compromised by that year’s Ballon d’Or winner, Pavel Nedved, being ruled out through suspension.
The following day, Mourinho flew to London, combining a trip with his family with a scouting missing, watching the clash between Chelsea and Monaco that would decide Porto’s opponent in the final. It seems likely that Mourinho, while visiting Stamford Bridge, also met with his future employers. But first and foremost, Mourinho got his wish — Monaco beat Chelsea. Not only did Mourinho consider them easier to defeat, he knew the French side would travel to the final in Gelsenkirchen with relatively few fans. Therefore, Porto’s supporters would make the final into a home game for his side.
Mourinho always provided his players with — at the time — an unusual amount of information about the opposition. For the final he took things a step further, giving his players DVDs loaded with clips of their individual opponents, before chairing a group session and asking the players to raise their own points. Scouting had become a group task.
Advertisement
“Every coach has a special connection with three of four players. Maybe he has more confidence in those players, or it could just be a question of personality and affinity, and those players sometimes feel a little more freedom to make their voices heard,” says Derlei. “But he always made it clear that any player could question anything. His doors were always open. He made it clear that he didn’t have a monopoly on the truth, even if he had the final say. He was always very open, and everyone felt they were free to express themselves with him.”
Looking back at the final 20 years on, it feels like a different world. It’s not just that it’s difficult to imagine two ‘outsiders’ in the final, or that Mourinho and Didier Deschamps were regarded as fresh young coaches with exciting, attack-minded ideas. It’s also the formation. Both sides used a diamond midfield in conjunction with two centre-forwards. Monaco’s system was certainly more attack-minded — they used a solid holding midfielder with three others pushing forward, whereas Porto used three deep midfielders to support Deco. But Mourinho’s side offered more variety in attack — the strike duo of Carlos Alberto and Derlei drifted to the flanks, whereas Monaco’s strikers stayed in central areas.
That said, Monaco started more brightly. Porto again used a high defensive line to keep the aerial threat Fernando Morientes away from goal, but they opened themselves up to runs in behind from Ludovic Giuly, who had the game’s first major chance.
“Monaco liked to put balls in behind for runners,” remembers Costa. “We had a very coordinated defensive line with myself, Paulo (Ferreira), Nuno (Valente) and Ricardo (Carvalho). We worked on that a great deal. Our team played with very little distance between the defence, the midfield and the forwards. We liked to press and play with a high line. We got it wrong right at the start of the game, with Giuly almost scoring, but we stuck to the plan. It helped that we had Ricardo, who was really fast; if we got the offside trap wrong, he had the speed to to get back and sort things out.”
Porto were fortunate that Giuly departed through injury at 0-0. They were also lucky that Deschamps made the surprising decision to replace Giuly, a speedy livewire, with a second target man, Dado Prso.
The opener came shortly before half-time, a little against the run of play, through Carlos Alberto. The 19-year-old, already a senior Brazil international, had been signed in the January transfer window as a replacement for Derlei, who was initially ruled out for the remainder of the campaign after suffering a serious knee injury in December. But Derlei returned sooner than expected, so Carlo Alberto became his striker partner, not merely his stand-in, with McCarthy dropping to the bench.
The goal itself was unusual — Carlos Alberto tried to knock a Ferreira cross on towards Derlei, the ball bounced up awkwardly in the air, and he responded by instinctively hooking it home on the volley. It was a goal out of absolutely nowhere, which fit perfectly with the Brazilian’s general vibe.
Advertisement
“Carlos was crazy, in a good sense,” remembers Costa. “He was a real character in the dressing room, someone who made everyone laugh. He was young and he was cheeky. Physically, he was really strong, mature beyond his years. He was also just… different. He did things that other players wouldn’t have the courage to try. That’s what he brought to the team. He thought outside the box. He didn’t care about context. He was carefree, almost irresponsible due to his age. He would do incredible things — things no one else had the bravery or quality to do.”
It was the obvious high point in an otherwise unfulfilled career. Carlos Alberto managed only 33 top-flight goals, across 13 different clubs. “He had a very good career, but he had the quality to do much more in Europe,” says Costa. “Honestly, he was one of the best footballers I ever played with. If he had been more consistent, he could have been one of the top 10 players in the world.”
Mourinho won the in-game tactical battle. Deschamps made another curious substitution with 25 minutes remaining, sacrificing hard-working midfielder Edouard Cisse and introducing a third striker, Shabani Nonda, who at least offered some speed in behind. But Monaco were throwing numbers forward and leaving gaps for Porto to break into, and Mourinho sensed that. He withdrew goalscorer Carlos Alberto, brought on the energetic midfield runner Dmitri Alenichev, and played Deco as a second striker. This paid off quite brilliantly.
Alenichev assisted the second, after breaking forward down the left. Deco, in the middle, had the intelligence to find space by holding his position on the edge of the box, rather than darting towards the six-yard box. He received a cut-back unmarked, gave goalkeeper Flavio Roma the eyes, and then cut the ball across him into the bottom corner.
⚽️ Carlos Alberto, Deco, Alenichev
🔵 When Porto became European champions again in 2004 🏆@FCPorto | #UCLfinal pic.twitter.com/Bs1Tj0qO5M
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) May 26, 2022
“What can I say about Deco? He was our maestro,” says Costa. “When things were going against us, we could pass to him and be sure that he would know what to do. Deco was a phenomenal player. And so much better than people remember. He wasn’t just good on the ball; he worked really hard defensively as well. The whole team really valued him.”
Indeed, such was Deco’s reputation for being a modern European player who understood his tactical requirements without the ball, he was cited by Andy Roxburgh, then UEFA’s technical director, as a player who would be perfect for the future of football — strikerless formations, and six midfielders ahead of a back four. “The six players in midfield all could rotate, attack and defend,” he said. “But you’d need to have six Decos in midfield — he doesn’t just attack, he runs, tackles and covers all over the pitch.”
Then, sealing the deal, Alenichev raced forward down the left again, benefited from a fortunate ricochet as Derlei attempted an extravagant outside-of-the-boot through-ball, and then smashed home the third.
Two decades on, it remains an incredible achievement — the most unlikely European champion in the modern era, at the culmination of a truly outstanding season. That 2003-04 edition of the Champions League arguably featured as many memorable ties as any other.
Porto were thoroughly deserved winners. They squeezed through against Manchester United, certainly, but they completely outplayed Lyon in the quarter-final, were faultless tactically against Deportivo in the semi-final, and then won the final against Monaco comfortably.
“The players had the habit of watching the Champions League final together at the end of the season and we always imagined winning it one day,” Costa says. “But not in our wildest dreams did we ever think it would come true.”
(Top photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)