The Dragon will be fuming…

By: Magnusson | November 6th, 2007

It’s now practically confirmed, André Ayew Pelé will be starting tonight’s match in lieu of Djibril Cissé. And that may be a good choice given the kid’s enthusiasm and performance last saturday (it was against Lorient which is hardly Porto but still…).
The marseillais players will try to make us forget for a night their trials in the Ligue 1 and make their supporters happy once more with a qualification to the next round of this competition. After all, there is no need for us to really worry when it comes to this competition. We’ve had two wins and a draw, and now the outsider is at the top of the group. This is far from being a crucial game. If we win, we automatically go through and if we lose, we won’t be out of the compettion just yet.
With the fun fact of the day being that no french team has ever won in Porto. Hey! That’ what they said at Anfield. We could be surprising a lot of people but the realistic result would be a draw or a Porto win. At about an hour from the kickoff , here is the expected team:

30 Mandanda Steve
3 Taiwo Taye
4 Rodriguez Julien
32 Givet Gaël
20 Bonnart Laurent
19 Cana Lorik
22 Nasri Samir.
28 Valbuena Mathieu
17 M’Bami Modeste
29 Ayew André
11 Niang Mamadou

Aside from the obvious Givet-Rodriguez pairing that is supposed to get us to new heights, Eric Gerets will try a diamond organization in the midfield with Lorik cana at the lower tip, Modeste M’Bami at the left, Mathieu Valbuena at his right and Samir Nasri at the upper tip of that diamond, jut behind the two strikers who will be switching and bouncing off one another.
I’d really like to see this work because even though it would mean a lot less Cissé, it will also mean that any other striker could be paired with Niang and Nasri.

On a completely different note, Adidas made a special jersey for tonight’s game. A uniform that is all orange and that won’t be available for sale because marseille blue and orange shorts and socks looked too much like Porto’s. I know it sounds kinda trivial but the third Champions League jersey is a commercial success in spite of poor results and Adidas has made an amazing job marketing them. Now I don’t know how it will look but it can go either way. Just look at the template here. The highway fluorescent gear jokes are already old now. Let’s just hope the new uniform keeps us as lucky as we have been in the competition.

Here are a few pictures stolen from the official website of some of our fans already in Porto. It is sunny and hot over there. Now, “Messieurs les portugais…..”