Vítor Bruno Tactics At FC Porto 2024/2025 – Supercharged Midfield Movement – Tactical Analysis

In Porto, the dragons usually roar so loud that you can hear them throughout Portugal.

FC Porto have been one of the most successful teams in the country, having gained the most points out of all Portuguese teams in the top flight and won the second most championships in Liga Portugal throughout its history.

The clubs most prosperous time in history has to be the early 2000s when they won six out of seven possible championships between 2003 and 2009 and crowned themselves kings of Europe by winning the UEFA Champions League under José Mourinho in 2004.

This summer, the club was shaken up quite a bit.

For the last seven years, from 2017 to 2024, former Porto player Sérgio Conceição led the club but decided to step down in June.

After three league championships, four cup wins, one league cup win, and three Super Cup wins, the club was heading towards the future with new ideas of a new manager.

However, the club did not necessarily want to end things with its manager, so new club president André Villas-Boas decided to make longtime assistant coach Vítor Bruno the new head coach.

Bruno was an assistant of Sérgio Conceição since 2012 and now is supposed to mould the team back into a perennial title contender and challenge Rubén Amorim and Sporting Lisbon for the title sooner rather than later.

In this tactical analysis and team-focused scout report, we will analyze Vítor Brunos tactics he uses with his midfielders to dominate games again and make a run at the title in Liga Portugal for the first time in three years.

Dropping Back The Traditional Way

What’s really interesting about Porto’s play so far this season is that they are using their midfielders to progress the ball while not necessarily playing through them while building up or transitioning their attacks.

Under Vítor Brunos coaching style, he uses his midfielders in a variety of ways to overcome opposing teams‘ press, which is how Porto has managed to suffocate opposing teams thus far.

The first way Bruno has his midfielders move is through a traditional drop-back.

While the team usually lines up in a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 formation, it changes shape in the build-up.

Both centre-backs stay inside and inside their own third, while both fullbacks push up the field and provide some width.

The attacking midfielder and the wingers are pushing forward in a very narrow shape and the two remaining midfielders are tasked with helping out the centre-backs.

The centre-backs are deciding what type of build-up Porto are going to use by their positioning.

Here, we can see Porto shaping up in the build-up, with Diogo Costa playing as an additional outfield player at that stage.

Both centre-backs are positioning themselves out wide, which means that Porto are going to use the traditional drop-back in this situation.

While one midf