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Porto advance to knockout phase with 4-0 win over Club Brugge

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The game brought Brugge’s impressive run to an abrupt halt.

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Brugge’s Hans Vanaken, right, goes up against Porto’s goalkeeper Diogo Costa, (second right) and Porto’s Otavio, (centre). (AP pic)

BRUGES:
Porto advanced to the knockout phase of the Champions League when they got a 4-0 win at Group B leaders Club Brugge yesterday while group rivals Atletico Madrid failed to beat Bayer Leverkusen.

Porto won in an early match at the Jan Breyel Stadium to move to within one point of Club Brugge in the standings and were guaranteed a top-two finish when Atletico later drew 2-2 at home to the German club to crash out of contention.

Mehdi Taremi put Porto into a first-half lead before their goalkeeper Diogo Costa saved a twice-taken penalty to deny the Belgian hosts a way back into the game early in the second half.

Evanilson, Stephen Eustaquio, and Taremi added three more goals in quick succession to give Porto revenge after they lost 4-0 at home to Club Brugge in mid-September.

Porto could now go on and take top place in the group as they host Atletico on Tuesday while Club Brugge are away at Leverkusen.

“It was a deserved victory in a very competent game by my players,” said Porto coach Sergio Conceicao. “We were correcting what happened to us at our Dragao stadium.”

The game brought Brugge’s impressive run to an abrupt halt, after they had won three of their first four group games. They had not conceded a goal in Group B before yesterday.

They looked defensively fragile and made mistakes as Porto swept to a convincing third successive victory in the group after losing their opening two matches.

“The game started badly for us, and after conceding a stupid goal, we found ourselves chasing. Porto could lurk on the counter and they have the ideal players for that,” said Brugge goalkeeper Simon Mignolet.

“Porto was the deserved winner, we have to accept that but we still want to qualify as group winners,” he added.

Taremi missed two good early chances before tucking away the opener in the 33rd minute after a perfectly weighted through ball from captain Otavio.

Brugge won a penalty three minutes into the second half when defender David Carmo was caught by the VAR needlessly kicking out at Brugge defender Bruno Mechele as Porto cleared a corner.

Costa, who had saved two successive penalties in the Champions League, stopped Hans Vanaken’s shot but the VAR found he had moved off his line before the kick and a retake was ordered by English referee Michael Oliver.

Dutch international Noa Lang was then entrusted with the kick but Costa repeated his heroics, making a one-handed stop to keep his side’s lead intact.

Porto then carved apart the Brugge defence with Evanilson snapping up a missed clearance to make it 2-0 in the 57th minute and Eustaquio added the third three minutes later.

Taremi got his second goal of the game in the 70th minute after being unselfishly teed up by Otavio.

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