This is the second time this season Porto and Nottingham Forest will meet, with Forest winning 2-0 at the City Ground in October in the group stages.
Nottingham Forest’s only previous European away game in Portugal was at Sporting Braga in January this season, a game they lost 1-0.
Porto are competing in their 18th major European quarter-final, though this is their first since 2020-21 in the UEFA Champions League when they lost to Chelsea. In fact, they’ve been eliminated in their last four quarter-final ties since knocking out Spartak Moscow in the 2010-11 UEFA Europa League.
Nottingham Forest are into their fifth major European quarter-final and first since the 1995-96 UEFA Cup, when they were knocked out by Bayern Munich. They progressed from the other three in 1978-79 and 1979-80 in the European Cup and the 1983-84 UEFA Cup.
Porto are one of three sides with a 100% home record in the UEFA Europa League this season, along with Aston Villa and Freiburg, winning all five games. Only once have they won six home games in a European season, doing so in 2010-11 on their way to winning the Europa League.
Nottingham Forest’s win over Porto earlier this season in the UEFA Europa League came under former manager Sean Dyche. The only two instances of English clubs beating a team twice in a major European season under two different managers is Chelsea vs FC Nordsjælland in the 2012-13 UEFA Champions League (Di Matteo and Benitez) and Man Utd vs Villarreal in the 2021-22 Champions League (Solskjaer and Carrick).
Borja Sainz has assisted in each of his last two UEFA Europa League appearances for Porto – the last Porto player to assist a goal in three major European games in a row was Fredy Guarín in April/May 2011 in the Europa League.
Nottingham Forest manager Vítor Pereira is set to manage against FC Porto for the first time, though he did take charge of two games against FC Porto B in the II Divisão Série B in 2005-06 as SC Espinho manager. The only Portuguese manager to face them in the UEFA Europa League is Domingos Paciência in the 2011 final with Braga, a game won 1-0 by Porto.