9 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Anhá Candé did not need any: 7.78, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
He is 19, he is averaging 7.09, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
4 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
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.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Anhá Candé’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Porto B.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
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 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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 Vasco Sousa is on it.
1‑0 against Benfica B, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
8 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
13 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Porto B support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
At 19 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Felipe Silva
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Felipe Silva has come out of that comparison in the side, and Porto B have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, 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.
6 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.
The phone has started ringing about Tomás Pérez again, and this time the name on the line is Amora. Porto B are listening politely and promising nothing.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.16, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
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.
A 2‑0 win over Pacos de Ferreira, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
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
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.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Martim Cunha did not need any: 7.65, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Porto B have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
100 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Chances created: 11. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.
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.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mateus Mide did not need any: 7.84, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
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.
At 19 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.
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.
A brace, and Gonçalo Sousa takes the afternoon — 8.60
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Gonçalo Sousa provided it, and the 8.60 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 20 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Gonçalo Sousa 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Diogo Fernandes is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout5 Oct 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 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
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 Kauê Rodrigues is on it.
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.
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.
“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.
Successful dribbles: 11. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 11 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Marco Simoes after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
7 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Porto B have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
“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.
Chances created: 5. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.