In the Zone: Porto turn a corner with set-play prowess
Thursday, November 5, 2026
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Two headers from corners were pivotal to Porto gaining their first points of the league phase with a 4-1 home victory over Napoli on Wednesday night.
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Who says lightning doesn't strike twice? It certainly did at Porto last night as their set-piece powers propelled them to a first win of this league phase against Napoli.
Porto struck twice from corners and each time it was a Polish centre-back heading inside Alex Meret's right-hand post – first Jan Bednarek, then Jakub Kiwior – to highlight a dead-ball prowess that forms the focus of this analysis, brought to you by FedEx.
"This is something we work on a lot – we have a great group that's analysing and preparing things well," said Porto coach Francesco Farioli. "This is what we did once again, and after that the quality of the kickers plus the impact of the headers leads us to two goals from set pieces."
"For me, for my family, for my friends, it’s a fantastic moment," said Bednarek who, like Kiwior, had never scored in the UEFA Champions League before.
Porto netted 15 times from corners in winning last season's Portuguese title – 23% of their tally – and Gabriel Veiga, who delivered the ball for Bednarek, cited the contribution of coaches Lino Godinho and Lucho González and set-play analyst Michele Aragona when explaining: "[They] are three guys who live and breathe set pieces. We have many talks, many videos, many replays. Hard work sometimes pays off – sometimes not – but today we reaped those rewards."
Gabriel Veiga's personal reward was the Player of the Match prize for a display that also included Porto's second goal – his second of this campaign after his direct free-kick at Real Betis. "He dictated the game for Porto and was the creator of many of their best attacking moments," said the UEFA Technical Observer Group of the Spanish midfielder.
A different player, Inbeom Hwang, provided the delivery for Kiwior's goal, which underlined the intelligence behind Porto's success according to Napoli coach Massimiliano Allegri. He said: "At the first one, there was a switch in positions. At the second, we decided to mark the player who'd scored against us man to man, but they were clever enough to switch things up. It's the little details that make the difference."
