Conceicao: Porto not driven by revenge against Liverpool

Porto head coach Sergio Conceicao insisted the Portuguese side are not seeking revenge against Liverpool in the Champions League.

Tuesday will see Liverpool host Porto in the opening leg of their quarter-final tie at Anfield, where talk of vengeance has dominated headlines.

Liverpool crushed Porto 5-0 on aggregate in last season’s round-of-16 tie, with the Premier League giants scoring all five goals in Portugal.

Jurgen Klopp has already warned Liverpool to be wary of a revenge-seeking Porto side, however, Conceicao denied his team are motivated by the prospect of payback.

“I’ve heard you constantly ask this question, about whether it will be about revenge against Liverpool,” Conceicao told reporters. “No, it’s not about revenge, it’s a game of football.

“All games have a history, a different history to others. We have to understand that no single result can change the characteristics of our team.

“What happened last year was last year, end of story. We didn’t do things that we wanted to do, and the opponent was very clinical in what they did. The attacking side of things of the opponent, it was a game that what happened, happened. Nothing to do with revenge, we look at Liverpool as a very strong team.

“In this stadium they’ve only drawn two games, their direct rival is Manchester City and they drew here. Last year they were Champions League finalists, we know about all their strengths. We know all these elements, and there’s a very big difference compared to us.

“What we do best is our day to day work, our qualities that we do every game. At the moment you don’t measure by one day the value of teams. You measure about this work.”

#FCPorto #LFCFCP #UCL pic.twitter.com/721FMHXQts

— FC Porto (@FCPorto) April 8, 2019

Liverpool – last season’s Champions League finalists – are top of the Premier League as they seek to win their first league title since 1990.

The Reds have not lost a Premier League home fixture this season, while they are also unbeaten at Anfield in the Champions League.

Conceicao added: “I think it’s possible to win here. We’ve prepared for the game to win, that’s what we’ve worked towards and we have to work very hard. That’s what we want from this game.

“There’ll be different moments in the game, sometimes we’ll be without the ball, on other occasions there’ll be difficult transitions. We have to be very balanced from an attacking sense, and on other occasions we’ll be attacking. With these traditions of defending and attacking, this balance, there’ll be different moments in the game. The important thing is in these moments we understand what we have to do.”