Manchester City head coach Enzo Maresca has told his players they must be at their sharpest against set pieces when the club begin their Champions League campaign at FC Porto on Tuesday. He warned that anything less than a “perfect” performance could prove costly at a famously difficult venue.
City travel to the Estádio do Dragão for their opening group fixture of the 2026-27 competition, with kick-off at 20:00 BST, as Maresca continues his first European campaign in charge at the Etihad Stadium.
Set-piece danger at the top of the agenda
Speaking at his pre-match press conference on Monday, Maresca made clear that Porto’s effectiveness from dead-ball situations was one of the main talking points in his preparation, describing it as a facet of the game that has grown too significant to ignore.
“I know that FC Porto is very good on set-pieces, I think it’s become part of the game now,” Maresca said, according to Manchester City official website
“So we need to do our best, defend in the right way, score goals as much as we can from set-pieces, and now you need to be perfect because all teams are prepared for that.”
The warning comes with good reason. Porto have built a formidable home record in Europe over recent seasons, and their manager Francesco Farioli’s side head into Tuesday’s meeting having lost just once in their last 14 or 15 continental fixtures on their own turf.
City and Porto have met four times in European competition previously, with the Portuguese side yet to taste victory in any of those games, drawing one and losing three. Maresca will be desperate to protect the record rather than see it broken on his watch.
The Italian is only the fourth manager to lead City into the Champions League, following Roberto Mancini, Manuel Pellegrini and Pep Guardiola, none of whom lost their opening game in the competition.
Pellegrini’s and Guardiola’s sides each won their respective openers by at least three goals, setting a high bar for Maresca to match as he seeks a winning start of his own.
Spending questions dismissed as a ‘privilege’
Farioli had earlier suggested that City’s outlay of close to €500m during the summer transfer window amounted to added pressure on Maresca’s side heading into the new season.
A rebuild at City saw the departures of John Stones, Manuel Akanji, Rodri, Nathan Aké and Bernardo Silva, with Enzo Fernández, Elliot Anderson, Ayyoub Bouaddi and Iliman Ndiaye arrived in their place.
Asked directly about his Porto counterpart’s comments, Maresca declined to frame the summer spending as a burden.
“This is a question for Francesco. From my point of view, it’s not pressure, it’s a privilege,” he said.
City arrive in Portugal in good domestic form, having won each of their opening three Premier League fixtures of the season — against Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and, most recently, Coventry City, edged 1-0.
Only Chelsea have managed as many opening wins more often than City’s eight occasions of doing so in the Premier League era.
Maresca does have team-news concerns to manage before turning his full attention to Sunday’s Manchester derby against Manchester United.
Winger Jeremy Doku missed the trip to Portugal with a calf injury sustained during City’s Community Shield defeat by Arsenal.
Nico O’Reilly withdrew from the starting line-up against Coventry with a back problem, though the head coach sounded more optimistic about his availability for the weekend.
