Porto make it 8W with win over Benfica

Porto have won all 7 of their Primeira Liga matches this season. The latest, a 3-1 win over SL Benfica on Sunday 20 September, moved them to 21 points and kept them top of the table on 1 with a goal difference of +15.

The numbers behind the run are lopsided. Porto have scored 18 and conceded 3 across those 7 games, and the form line reads WWWWW. No draws, no defeats: 7 wins, 0 draws, 0 losses.

SL Benfica sit second on 16 points, five behind, with an identical goal difference of +15. Sporting CP are third on 15, and Santa Clara are level with them on 15 in fourth. That gap at the top is the whole story of the opening weeks.

Worth asking whether anyone can close it. SL Benfica have the means, and Vangelis Pavlidis leads the scoring charts with 8 goals for them, ahead of Luis Suárez on 6 for Sporting CP and Georgios Koutsias on 5 for Famalicão. But chasing a side that has dropped nothing is a different task from chasing one that has.

Next comes a trip to Marítimo on Saturday 10 October, matchday 8. On paper it is the softer of the two fixtures around the international break. Porto have been beaten away from home already this season — twice, in fact, if you count the away split of 11 wins, 1 draw and 2 defeats that sits behind the current run. That record belongs to a longer stretch than the seven league games, and it is the one number on this page that does not flatter them.

Seven from seven is seven from seven. The table says 1 of 8 teams, and nobody else has 21 points.