Porto and Atletico Madrid had last night a big battle for second spot in Champions League Group B, and with a great display at the Estádio do Dragão, the Spanish side came out with a 3-1 win and a spot in the knock-out stage.
The important match drew interest from several clubs who sent scouts to the north of Portugal. Among them were Leicester City, Southampton and Wolverhampton Wanderers.
It’s newspaper O Jogo who reports the long list of emissaries who travelled for the match, although they bring no details on who the officials were watching on this occasion.
Even though Porto still had a chance of qualification, the truth is that Atletico Madrid smashed the Dragons at their own home ground, opening a 3-0 score and only conceding a late goal following a penalty in the final minute.
So for the scouts who wanted to see Porto’s talents, there was not really a lot to watch. The local media chose Pepe as the man of the match, as he was able to avoid a bigger disaster. Other players such as João Mário, Marko Grujic, Vitinha and Luis Diaz had a fair performance.
Now in case there was interest in Atletico Madrid players, then there was plenty to see, with Jan Oblak, Geoffrey Kondogbia, Rodrigo de Paul and especially Antoine Griezmann doing pretty well.
Leicester City, Southampton and Wolves are clubs who often scout games in Portugal, although they haven’t been heavily linked to any Porto players in the past few months, despite a couple of weak rumours.
Back in the summer, it was reported the Foxes made an approach for the signing of Otavio. However, he ended up renewing his deal and staying at the Estádio do Dragão, and was even a starter last night.
A couple of months ago, we also saw Wolves scouting a Porto game and a suggestion that they could sign Vitinha once again. That was a claim that was never repeated by the local media, so perhaps the interest could grow once they saw him doing well in the Champions League.
