PORTO, Portugal (AP) - FC Porto needed another decisive performance by Andre Silva to end a winless drought at home in Europe with a 1-0 victory over Club Brugge in the Champions League on Wednesday.
The Portugal forward scored his 11th goal in his last nine appearances between club and country, helping Porto to snap a four-game winless run at home in European competition.
Porto is in second place with seven points in Group G, three points behind leader Leicester, which was held to a scoreless draw at third-place FC Copenhagen.
The result eliminated Brugge, which is yet to earn a point after four matches. Copenhagen has five points.
Silva scored with a header off a corner in the 37th minute at the Estadio do Dragao. The ball deflected off the shoulder of Brugge midfielder Tomas Pina before going into the top corner by the far post.
“It is always important when you score the winning goal,” the 20-year-old Silva said.
“We won, so we accomplished our mission for this match. We claimed the three points, which was the most important thing tonight. Now we have to go into our next match with the same confidence. We will have to fight until the end.”
It was Silva’s fourth goal in his last four matches with Porto. He scored an injury-time winner in the 2-1 victory at Brugge last month.
He also had four goals in Portugal’s most recent World Cup qualifiers, against Andorra and the Faroe Islands.
Porto goalkeeper Iker Casillas made a difficult save to deny Pina an equalizer for Brugge in the 85th, as the Belgian side endured an eight-game winless run in away matches in European competition.
“In the second half, we all believed we could still claim a point here, but we failed to do that,” Brugge captain Ruud Vormer said. “We have not been lucky in this campaign.”
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