FC Porto – The City in Blue and White

28 Sep, 2016, By Sílvia

For most of the outsiders, the Futebol Clube do Porto is just another top notch European football team, but here in Porto it’s way more than that. Everywhere in town I can easily spot the marvellous FCP striped flags dancing in balconies and windows. The wonderful blue and white stripes took the place of the white and green as this city’s official colours.

Alongside the white drying laundry, these blue motifs somehow resemble the typical tile work around town, but instead of narrating the trials and tribulations of saints and kings, these ones narrate some of the highest achievements in this prideful national sport. In a time of no saints and kings, FC Porto’s athletes and president are now the city’s heroes, adored all over town, with shrines dedicated to them in many local establishments, from tascas to barbershops.

Like the Port wine or the beautiful bridges over the silvery Douro River, FC Porto is one of this city’s strongest trademarks. So much so that, sometimes, to be a Porto inhabitant and a FC Porto supporter gets mixed up. Although not all portuenses are FC Porto supporters, the nicknames tripeiros (tripe eaters) and invictos (unvanquished) have long been associated with the club, and the club itself has somehow changed the way of life in town.

I can still recall the summer of 2003, when the city was granted a month long of festivities, celebrating the winning of the Portuguese Championship, Portuguese Cup and the UEFA Cup by José Mourinho’s FC Porto, and the Saint John’s celebration itself. Those were marvellous hot days of revelry and excess, forever carved in this city’s logbooks. You can still find that season’s FC Porto’s line up in posters all over town, and their humble owners wouldn’t sell them for any prize, and the prouder ones will never do.