Villas-Boas refuses Pinto da Costa’s invitation to the box. Prefer to be with partners | FC Porto

Pinto da Costa has already congratulated André Villas-Boas on his overwhelming electoral victory in this Saturday’s FC Porto elections, followed by an invitation to watch this Sunday’s match against Sporting in the presidential box at Estádio do Dragão. The future Porto president was grateful for the attention, but maintains the idea of ​​occupying the annual seats on the new bench, the same ones where he has watched all of the “Dragons'” matches so far.

“In principle, I maintain the idea of ​​watching the game with the members. I spoke to the president this morning, he congratulated me. He invited me to be on the stand, but I think that, at this stage, it makes more sense to be closer to the associates, at least one last time”, said André Villas-Boas, in a statement to journalists, this Sunday morning.

After 42 years of Pinto da Costa as president, the Porto members elected a new president this Saturday. André Villas-Boas, former coach of the “blue and whites”, will lead the club’s fortunes for the next four years, after defeating the historic manager. More than 26 thousand votes were placed at the 44 polling stations, in the most participated election in the club’s history. About three hours after the polls closed, Vítor Baía acknowledged Pinto da Costa’s defeat: “The members are the ones in charge of the club, that’s what they wanted. We have to prepare for the transition.”

The declaration was made when the official results were not yet known – they would only be released many hours later, in the early hours of the morning. Villas-Boas won with 80% of the votes, while Pinto da Costa reached 19.5% and Nuno Lobo did not go beyond 0.2%.

The place that the winner would occupy in this Sunday’s classic was one of the main doubts of the night, wondering whether, after a conflictive electoral campaign, Pinto da Costa would invite André Villas-Boas and congratulate the former coach. The main loser of the night left the Estádio do Dragão without making a statement, with the car he was traveling in being surrounded by members of the Super Dragões fans. Some of the Porto fans tried, moments later, to invade the stadium garage, being stopped by security elements and police.

On the winning side, the party continued into the early hours. The venue for the party was André Villas-Boas’ campaign headquarters, on Rua de Agramonte, in the city of Porto. The coach celebrated the election results with his supporters by wearing the shirt of Rui Filipe, an FC Porto player who died in a car accident. It was also with this number 13 shirt that former Brazilian player Juary scored one of the club’s winning goals in the European Cup final, played in Vienna in 1987. Afterwards, already dressed in formal clothes, he gave the speech that ended the party, without forgetting the historic leader.

“It is a historic moment for FC Porto and for Portuguese football. I would like to say a word to the remaining candidates, especially Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa. I would like to express my gratitude for everything he gave to our FC Porto, to life he gave to FC Porto and the guarantee that this is and will always be his home”, he stated.

For André Villas-Boas, FC Porto is “free again”, now following a “hard work” day.