Porto Score Three Late Goals to Beat Napoli 4-1
Porto beat Napoli 4-1 in the Champions League on Wednesday, and most of the damage came late. Napoli had drawn level at 1-1 before Porto scored three goals in the final 20 minutes at the Estádio do Dragão, the club's home stadium.
The Champions League is the main club competition in Europe, bringing together teams from across the continent. Its league phase is a run of matches that decides who reaches the knockout rounds. For Napoli, the trip to Porto came only three days after a 2-0 defeat away to Juventus in Serie A, Italy's top division, on Sunday 1 November.
Napoli are coached by Massimiliano Allegri, according to UEFA's match page. Porto had been strong at home in the build-up, and the match was a fixture in the club's own calendar for weeks. Ahead of the game, Napoli had posted a news item on their website reading "One day to go until Porto showdown".
Porto's late surge is the moment that will stay with the people who were there. A 1-1 game can go either way with twenty minutes left. Porto took the lead and kept pressing, and the score moved quickly away from Napoli. The BBC's match video shows the result as it stood at full time.
For Napoli, the schedule does not offer much time to recover. Their next game is at home to Lazio on 8 November, listed on the club's fixtures page for 12:30.
For neutral fans, the lesson of the night is simple. In the Champions League, a game can change shape in a few minutes, and a 1-1 scoreline at the hour mark means very little. Porto's players had twenty minutes to show it, and they did.
