Normally, the Benfica fans had nothing to fear from the Porto team, but the truth of the matter remained that they had lost the title of champions of the Liga NOS to the Porto team the previous season, and even worse, they had been unable to defeat them in any of the three times that they had met in the previous season both in the season campaign matches and during a domestic cup campaign.
Yet even with that, the Benfica fans were a fiery bunch who didn't think they would keep losing to the Porto team just because that was the current sequence, but optimism and realism were two different things.
The Benfica fans had optimism that their team could turn the tides in the coming season, and when they heard about the Porto team losing quite a few of their important first-team players, their optimism slowly started turning to confidence, but reality had thrown a harsh slap in their face.
