Julen Lopetegui hails 'fantastic' Porto after Basel rout

Porto: Porto's four fantastic goals showed the gulf in class with their Champions League victims Basel, who were outgunned in every department in their last-16 second leg on Tuesday.

Julen Lopetegui's side were in scintillating form to beat their sorry Swiss opponents 4-0 on the night, with excellent long-range strikes, to complete a 5-1 aggregate victory.

Porto, who along with Chelsea are the only unbeaten sides still in the competition, showed they will be an unwelcome draw for the more-fancied teams left in the last eight.

"This is all about continuing to grow, not about one game but about a whole season and making sure it comes to a satisfactory end," Spanish coach Lopetegui told reporters.

"As far as the game was concerned, we showed a huge amount of ambition and also great quality from our boys. This is a very young side and to win so well in such a big game shows the quality running through our squad...

"It involved fantastic work with much ambition from the players. It is not just my work, but the tremendous work of my players."

Porto took the lead with an excellent first-half free kick from Yacine Brahimi followed by equally eye-catching second-half strikes from Hector Herrera, Casemiro and Vincent Aboubakar.

SOUR NOTE

The only sour note for Porto was a collision between full back Danilo and goalkeeper Fabiano, which resulted in the defender being rushed unconscious to hospital.

"It was a very dramatic, shocking moment when Danilo was rushed from the field," Lopetegui said.

"First of all we have to say that he appears to be ok, but to see him being taken away like that was a shock to us all."

Despite being soundly beaten, Basel boss Paulo Sousa said he was "proud of my side's accomplishments this season in the Champions League.

"We had a short spell of dominance at the end of the first half and, if we had been able to score during this phase, things might have been different.

"But, clearly, we were second best to Porto tonight and we should congratulate them on their fine performance...

"We did not manage in the two games with Porto to arrive at the top of our game in the way we did before Christmas on various occasions," he added.