Porto 2-2 Sporting Lisbon: Pepe sent off in 40-man brawl at full-time

FC Porto extended their unbeaten run to 50 matches on Friday evening.

The Portuguese table-toppers battled back from 2-0 down against title rivals Sporting Lisbon to earn a priceless 2-2 draw at the Estadio do Dragao.

Sporting raced into a 2-0 lead in the first half thanks to goals from Paulinho and Nuno Santos.

Porto halved the deficit just before the half-time interval courtesy of Fabio Vieira’s strike and they finally found an equaliser in the 78th-minute of play.

Mehdi Taremi was the man who delivered it, the home side taking advantage of the fact that Sporting were down to 10-men because former Liverpool defender Sebastian Coates picked up a second booking four minutes after the break.

It was a thrilling match all in all, but things descended into chaos at full-time.

Ex-Real Madrid defender Pepe was, of course, at the heart of it.

In the ninth and final minute of stoppage-time, the seemingly ageless centre-back appeared to take a blow to the head inside the penalty area from Joao Palhinha’s acrobatic clearance.

Pepe writhed around in agony for close to a minute while being ignored by the referee and watching play continue.

The full-time whistle then kickstarted the chaos, with players and staff all heading towards the goalmouth where Pepe was.

And for a good five minutes inside the Dragao, it was absolute mayhem. Four players (Pepe, Palhinha, Tabata and Agustín Marchesín) were shown red cards by the referee for their part in a 40-man brawl that even involved the ball boys.

Check out footage of the wild scenes on the pitch at full-time here…

Five minutes of ABSOLUTE CHAOS to end a thriller between Porto and Sporting