Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Porto B have 5 straight wins of it.
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Anhá Candé, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.83
A mark of 7.83 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
He is 19, he is averaging 7.05, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
A 3‑1 win over Académico de Viseu, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Marked 7.29 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
Nobody at Porto B will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Gonçalo Sousa did not need any: 8.31, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
The name of Tomás Pérez has come up in conversations Porto B were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Porto B are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 19-year-old it feels ownership of. Mateus Mide has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Vasco Sousa in the middle of it, and Oliveirense unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mateus Mide did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
He is 18, he is averaging 7.00, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Porto B can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Marco Simoes on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
In brief
The dugoutVasco Sousa has become a man the manager trusts
Player ratingsA defender's afternoon for Martim Cunha
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. João Teixeira is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Farense left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Marco Simoes to a room that had heard them before.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Martim Cunha is on it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Porto B know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
At 20 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Porto B will try not to make too much of it.
It needed Mateus Mide to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Sporting CP B, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout7 Dec 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Marco Simoes was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Porto B dressing room was either.
Gonçalo Sousa, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.55
A mark of 8.55 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Bernardo Lima is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Kauê Rodrigues has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Kauê Rodrigues was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.23. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The fixture the calendar is arranged around. Form goes out of the window, the table is not consulted, and for ninety minutes Porto B will be judged on one thing only.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑1, Marco Simoes could afford to be generous.
Nobody at Porto B will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Martim Cunha has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Porto B know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mateus Mide did not need any: 7.89, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Marco Simoes after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Víctor García is on it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Porto B have no good answer.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
At 18 he has taken a place rather than been given one, and somebody else has to find something to say about it. Porto B have a decision that made itself.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Successful dribbles: 14. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Marco Simoes chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Pacos de Ferreira defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Leiria next, and one man in the Porto B dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 10 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
“I am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at Porto B was different afterwards.
Two goals and a mark of 8.22 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kauê Rodrigues. 2‑1 against Académico de Viseu, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad31 Aug 2026
14 new faces, and Porto B are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Marco Simoes kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.