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21/08/07 1 The championship has started and, as far as I could tell from reading A Bola
yesterday, the first 'psychological whipping' [sacking of a coach] is about to happen and at Benfica. The next few hours will tell if the sacking of Fernando Santos is confirmed news, wishful thinking on the part of the writer of yesterday's piece, or both. [The news was confirmed on 20 August].
Fernando Santos has been crucified for being the weakest link in the chain and the easiest one to make a scapegoat of. I'm not going to discuss whether he is or not a good coach – that's a subjective
question that it would be inelegant to address now. What I do know is that for the last 20 years or so, Benfica's coaches have been paying for the eternally postponed desire for a return to O Glorioso's days of
glory. But in those 20 years I don't think that Benfica have had a single president who's been up to the task. If, for example, it's only the main football team that's failing at the moment, it's worth asking at which
other level of football, or any other sport, Benfica were champions last season? None! So … all of Benfica's coaches are incompetent and only the Directors are above any criticism. The truth is that in Portuguese clubs,
and not just Benfica, there are only two types of moveable object: coaches and good players – who come and go with the circumstances and opportunities. Now, presidents and bad players – there's no shifting them.
Fernando Santos was the personal choice of [Benfica president] Luís Filipe Vieira. [Former Director of Football] José Veiga, too, and from what they say, it was he that chose the reinforcements for this season. Helped
by a lot of publicity, they convinced Benfica fans that, as Vieira said, this was "the best teams of the decade". That allowed Vieira to sell Simão (who was for Benfica what Quaresma is for Porto) for 20 million euros,
after having sworn that he would only sell him for 25 million. It allowed him to sell Manuel Fernandes on the same day as the decisive Champions League game against Copenhagen, after he had said that he wouldn't sell
him, and to present in his place Freddy Adu – the "new Eusébio", a supposed "phenomenon" chased by Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea, who the genius Veiga allowed Vieira to snap up at 1.5 million euros. It being
thus decreed that this was a dream team, it was just a matter of waiting for the corresponding show and results. As they didn't appear straight away, it could only be the coach's fault because, by definition, the
president is infallible. There's nothing like governing without criticism or scrutiny. Ask [FC Porto president] Pinto da Costa. And ask Luís Filipe Vieira, who has 80% of the sports press worshipping his every move,
promoting him and absolving him from all his cock-ups, in a daily exercise of fawning and subservience which does nothing to flatter the sports journalist community. 2 An FC Porto team transformed for the better in relation to the one that lost the Supertaça
won with class, drive and all the justice in the world the difficult opening game in Braga. I expected more of Braga and less of FC Porto, but fortunately it was the other way round. Please excuse my immodesty, but I fell a little bit responsible for the victory: for the last three years I've been constantly banging on in defence of Ricardo Quaresma and for the club not to sell him. I started it even when [former coach] Co Adriaanse, with the generalised support of the critics, would put him on the bench, with the justification that he "didn't defend". After a season in which Quaresma was responsible for 50% of passes for goal, there he is winning the Braga game on his own. After the sale of Pepe and Anderson, if they sell him too, if his leg is broken or if the
Liga Disciplinary Committee get him again, the team's had it. As much as [coach] Jesualdo Ferreira talks about "the group", which actually performed well in Braga. 3 I
won't be here to watch FC Porto v Sporting on Saturday. I'm not going to make any predictions, but I'm going to make a wish that's going to irritate Sporting fans … anyway: I hope that no refereeing decision decides the
game. The thing is, although I think that Porto played badly and deserved to lose the last two games against Sporting, in both games the final result was influenced by refereeing decisions. At the end of the Supertaça
, everyone agreed that there was a penalty not given against Sporting for hand-ball by Tonel. And in the decisive game of the last championship, in the Dragão, Sporting's winning goal came from a free-kick for a
foul that didn't exist, as opposed to the flagrant penalty in the last minute committed by Polga and which [referee] Pedro Henriques, under the influence of the 'Golden Whistle' syndrome, didn't have the courage to give.
In fact, anyone who reads me regularly will know that I've had this theory for many years: in the middle of the eternal Benfica v Porto war, the 'Golden Whistle' here and 'Red Whistle' there, the team that's really
come out of it on top is Sporting. Always ready to present themselves as "the gentlemen of football", always protesting against refereeing decisions when they lose and keeping quiet when they benefit from them, Sporting
fans have had, year in year out, the greatest number of favourable refereeing mistakes going their way and have always been helped, when they play at home at Alvalade, by almost crazy bias from referees, under pressure
from the stands. That's why, in international games, they're always surprised by refereeing that they're not used to. But then a theory's a theory – each has his own.
14/08/07 Dear Porto fans: this piece, this reflection, is just for you. It's the first of the new season and must remain between us. When I left you to go on holiday, we'd just sold Anderson [to Manchester
United] and my last piece was almost written out of anger: I thought, and I still do, that the Anderson sale was a very bad deal. He was sold prematurely, before he'd given enough to the club and before his value could
rise even more, because he's going to be a serous case in football. He was sold in a hurry, to cover up the 30 million euro hole in FC Porto's finances. After that, Pepe was sold [to Real Madrid], this time a good deal
because although I've been saying here that he was the best central defender I've ever seen play, 30 million for that position is impossible to refuse. Of the three real stars that we had to sell, only Quaresma is
left. I don't know, no one knows, if he'll be sold or not, but with the sales of Anderson and Pepe, and as we're the club that has made the most money in the world from sales this close season, it isn't difficult to
say, as [Porto president] Pinto da Costa has done, that this year the club is going to make a profit. It would be a scandal if it didn't! The question is if next year it we will have to sell Quaresma, plus [newly
arrived midfielder] Leandro Lima, to cover up another 30-million-euro hole from this financial year … The nub of the question is always the same: year in, year out, FC Porto sells a few good players and buys a load of
bad ones. And the money made from the sale of some goes to sustaining the others. A more understanding Porto fan told me a few days ago that only by buying a lot of players is it possible to buy an Anderson and a Pepe
once in a while. As if we were talking about melons. But you don't have to know much about football to see that a Marreque, a Renteria and others of the ilk could never become Pepes or Andersons – and that's why they
were loaned out, just six months after being bought. This year, just when it looked like there would be more cost containment, the story ended up being repeated: the club bought a whole team, a dozen players – of whom
three were loaned out straight away. Of those we didn't need (from my point of view) only one was sold: Ricardo Costa [Wolfsburg]. The others were either loaned out, with Porto picking up the salary bill, or are
awaiting "placement", or are "training separately", or are with the main squad but are excess to requirements. Because on this question, the big clubs make no mistake: what they want are the really good players. The
others, those who, according to the friendly press, "have a market", continue to wait. In other words, you sell Anderson but keep hold of Lucho [González], you sell Pepe but keep hold of Raul Meireles. Well … In the end, 12 new players have joined the club. I presume that they've all had the coach's ok, as would be expected. I also presume that he gave the ok for Ibson and Diogo Valente to be released, and for
wingers like Alan and Vierinha (the latter never having had a chance to confirm initial good impressions) to be loaned out. I also presume that it was on his say-so that Porto went for players like Nuno, Luís Aguiar,
Bolatti, Edgar and Lino. I presume that, as might be expected, those that came in are better than those that left. And that the club only contracted them because they were considered to add value to the squad. And it's
presuming all this that I can't understand how it is that 12 signings later, [coach] Jesualdo Ferreira has no new face to present in the Supertaça, the first official game of the season. If none of them can go
directly into the team (Sporting had four new faces in the same game …), why did the club want to sign them? If it was to be substitutes, wouldn't the ones thrown away have served the same purpose?
Jesualdo prepared the defeat to Sporting in the Supertaça
almost scientifically. Yes, I know – there was a penalty not given, three balls against the post, a break on goal interrupted with no reasonable explanation by our friend [the referee] Bruno Paixão and an opponent, Izmailov, who, after spending a whole game sleeping, pulled a fantastic shot out of the bag. But the truth is that Jesualdo lost against a Sporting team that showed it can defend well but not much more. It's the second time he's managed it and frankly, it's beginning to get on my nerves.
I realised Porto were going to lose the game when I heard Jesualdo speaking beforehand. He said that the game would be decided by a mistake from one of the teams. He was wrong, but the important thing is that this
statement showed that his only tactic for winning was relying on a mistake by the opponent. By his own or his team's merits he didn't expect to get there. And when you choose a midfield made up of Paulo Assunção,
Marek Cech and Raul Meireles – three players who only know how to pass sideways or back – it's difficult to come by goals that win games. From what we saw in the pre-season games, Jesualdo has just one strategy for
getting goals: give the ball to Quaresma and he'll sort it out. But either Quaresma will be sold, or clogged (as they did to Anderson), or judiciously suspended (like last season), or he'll blow up through exhaustion.
After signing 12 players, it seems to me that it's not too much to ask that the coach should have other alternatives and put them into effect. The thing is that what we saw from the pre-season games, he already seems
to have them. There are two players that could be clear assets: Mariano González and Leandro Lima. But Jesualdo only put them on when the game was already lost because, and following a school of thought embraced by some
very scientific coaches, talent is a dangerous thing and needs to be controlled. Mediocre players are always useful and it's the good ones that have to be integrated into the team little by little. Anderson and
Quaresma, for example, both spent a year being integrated little by little … Opting not to fit into the team any of the reinforcements he asked for and got, opting to dispense with talent and the
unexpected, which he left sitting on the bench, in favour of predictable and innocuous football, Jesualdo sat waiting for the opponent to make a mistake. And he blew it. He alone lost the Supertaça
to [Sporting coach] Paulo Bento. During this season and just as last, there will be many chances to praise him, at least I hope so. This time there weren't. |
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