 |
|
||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
footballportugal ********** |
|||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
||||||
footballportugal |
||||||
31/07/07 Benfica coach Fernando Santos had said that it would be a "terrible nightmare" if Simão Sabrosa left the club, so he must now be having some sweaty nights after the diminutive winger was sold to Atlético Madrid for 20 million euros, plus first dibs on two Atlético players for the Águias. Simão said that Benfica will always be in his heart, but if the truth be told, he's been trying to leave the club for at least two seasons, first Liverpool and then Valência being favourites to sign him. Once again, it's dosh that does the talking; Simão will earn twice what he was getting at Benfica. The crunch catalyst for him actually moving now, however, may well have been his own personal nightmare: the prospect of having to wear Benfica's shocking new pink away strip every other week … Simão joined Benfica in 2001 from Barcelona after learning his trade with Lisbon rivals Sporting , and he's been very good value. He cost 12 million euros, and in his 113 Liga games he scored 75 goals, 94 in all competitions, although the majority of them were from free-kicks or penalties. He was voted Player of the Year 2006/07 by the Liga coaches, and his influence, or lack of it, was immediately felt in Benfica's lame performance at the weekend against African giants Al-Ahly; Benfica went down 1-2 against the side coached by the former Luz-man Manuel José. The Pinks' goal was scored by Nuno Assis in his first game back after suspension for doping, but he isn't a strong enough player to kill the saudades Benfiquistas will be feeling for Simão this season. Nor will the latest signings, American Freddy Adu and Argentinian Angel di Maria, be likely to fill the experienced former captain's boots; they are after all only 19. The sale of Simão has made it possible for Benfica to more than balance the books for the summer. Sports daily O Jogo reported that the club has taken 23 million euros from sales with an outlay of 17.5 (including 9 for Paraguayan Óscar Cardozo). Rivals for the title Sporting and FC Porto have done even better. Sporting have spent 6.5 million for, among others, Vukcevic from Lokomotiv and Purovic from Red Star, and have taken 29 million, Nani (Manchester United 25.5) and Ricardo (Bétis, 2) the main money-makers. But FC Porto are the champions so far in terms of cash rolling in: Anderson (Manchester United, 31.5) and Pepe (Real Madrid, 30) have helped swell takings to 69 million, while just 13 million has left the coffers, Ernesto Farias (River Plate, 4) and Stepanov (Trabzonspor, 3.5) costing the most. However relatively little the Big Three have spent on reinforcements, in contrast, two of the clubs that might be the most likely to challenge for the top spots, Sporting Braga and Vitória de Guimarães, have spent next to nothing: Braga have recruited 11 players on a free transfer and one on loan. Vitória have signed 11 on frees and two on loan. Such is the financial logic of the Portuguese Liga. Sporting Braga had a good pre-season run in Holland, winning six out of six, but then returned home to be beaten 0-1 by local rivals Gil Vicente of the Liga de Honra (second tier). It was FC Porto that showed the best form of the week. In a triangular tournament to celebrate Italian side Atalanta's 100th anniversary, Os Dragões beat first Red Star 1-0 (with a spectacular overhead kick by Adriano) and then the hosts by the same score (Lisandro López). The common factor to both games? Deadly crosses from Ricardo Quaresma. Porto then made the short trip across town to comfortably beat Boavista 3-0 in front of just 3,000 at the 30,000-seater Bessa, the goals coming from Tarik (2) and Hélder Postiga , both seemingly on their way out of the Dragão. Boavista, with grave financial difficulties, have signed some promising new players on the cheap, but it will take time for them to get working together as a team. A disappointing Sporting could only draw 1-1 at home to Spanish side Recreativo de Huelva in the official presentation of the squad to the fans. Paraguayan midfielder Carlos Paredes got Sporting's goal and failed to celebrate it; a piece of body language revealing that he is less than happy at the club, perhaps? (This article appeared on the international website Extra Football)
25/07/07 Things are beginning to warm up in Portugal. All of the Big Three had challenging friendlies at the weekend, and all came out of them
positively. Champions FC Porto
replayed their 2004 Champions League Final against AS Monaco at the Dragão and once again won, this time 2-1. Argentinian forward Lisandro López headed the first from a Quaresma free-kick, and Quaresma won a penalty in the second half for Hélder Postiga, on Spanish club Levante's shopping list at four million euros, to bang home the spot-kick. Pino pulled one back for Monaco ten minutes from time. Porto's starting line up was made up entirely of players that have carried over from last season, except for Nuno in goal, who returns to the
Dragão from Moscow Dynamo. Of the newcomers who came on in the second half, Argentinian Mário Bolatti arguably looked the sharpest … but it is of course early days. Two more factors were common to that
night of glory three years ago: inspirational captain Pedro Emanuel returned after a season out through injury (the captain's armband was passed on to Ricardo Quaresma when Pedro Emanuel was substituted in the second
half) and the team returned to the strip that features thinner-than-normal blue and white stripes. It's to be seen whether this is a positive augury or not. Against Lille at Alvalade XXI, Sporting changed their
strip from midweek, when black numbers on a dark green panel made the players as anonymous as their performance in a friendly against useful-looking, newly-promoted Vitória de Guimarães. That game, for the City of
Albufeira Trophy, finished 0-0 and went to penalties, which Vitória won 5-4. On Saturday, Sporting looked much sharper against Lille on a new pitch, laid after the recent Rolling Stones concert
at the stadium. It cut up very badly, but it didn't stop Sporting winning comfortably 3-0. Sporting fans have a favourite slogan: "Liedson Resolve". Once again, the diminutive Brazilian striker did most of the
resolving with two goals, the other coming from new signing Vukcevic. Of the new faces, Brazilian central defender Gladstone was perhaps the most impressive. Benfica travelled to Romania to be guests at
Cluj's 100th anniversary. It proved a good tough test for the pinks (Benfica were wearing their controversial but oddly very popular new pink and grey away strip) against a club that has been raiding the Portuguese Liga
in the last couple of seasons, fielding nine Portuguese players plus a couple of Brazilians nicked from Portuguese clubs. Of most interest to Benfiquistas was the performance of record foreign signing, the Paraguayan
striker Óscar Cardozo. He didn't disappoint, showing some very promising touches and scoring with a cracking shot from 20 metres to add to Rui Costa's drilled goal that was reminiscent of the one he scored
against England at Euro 2004. Dani had put Cluj in front, and the Romanian birthday-boys later equalised through Semedo; it's a mystery how this excellent former Estrela da Amadora forward didn't make more of a name for
himself in Portugal, but such is footballing fate. Given that none of these matches was strictly speaking competitive, perhaps the most exciting game of the weekend was a World Final in which Brazil beat Portugal
5-2, Portugal running their eternal rivals very close until they wilted in the third period. It was Brazil's tenth title from twelve (Portugal and the USA have won one each). Played at Portimão in the Algarve. On
the Praia da Rocha. The 12th Mundialito of Beach Football. (This article appeared on the international website
22/07/07 Apito Dourado ('Golden Whistle') is the code name for an ongoing investigation by the Judicial Police (JP) of corruption in Portuguese football. The investigation has its roots in the 2003/04 season, when widespread phone-tapping was conducted by the JP, following up on tip-offs from as yet anonymous sources. There has always been a vague notion of a 'System' in the Portuguese game, with, depending on your allegiance, Benfica and FC Porto at the forefront of suspicions, but Apito Dourado is effectively skewering actual protagonists left right and centre. In a first wave, club presidents, league and federation representatives, local politicians, agents, lawyers, and referees and refereeing council officials were implicated. But little by little, inevitably, even methodically, the various cases under investigation were being shelved, prompting cries of 'foul play' from the more attentive. In December of last year, however, a book was published that would pump new lifeblood into the scandal: Eu Carolina was the account, by Carolina Salgado, of her six years as wife to Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa , president of FC Porto.
Carolina had met Pinto da Costa in 2000 at a Porto bar of dubious repute, Calor da Noite ('Heat of the Night') in which she was working, their first dance Sting's 'Brand New Day'. "Love has a cruel and bitter way" went the song, auguring far from well for the Porto president. Carolina's kiss-and-tell book and the various accusations she spat out at her now-ex (despite the dedication: "To Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, for all he taught me.") revived the investigation, indeed, became the backbone of its second wave. On the basis of the book, the Public Prosecutor's Office put Maria José Morgado, a kind of Margaret Thatcher/Red Adair hybrid, in charge of proceedings. Files started flying off the shelves, and to date, Pinto da Costa has been charged on three counts of active corruption of referees, all of games in Mourinho's triumphant 2003-04 season, in which Porto won the Champions League and the domestic Liga title by 12 clear points from Benfica. There was a 0-0 draw at Beira-Mar and a 3-2 win for Nacional over Benfica (with the Nacional president Rui Alves also implicated), both games refereed by an alleged favourite of Pinto da Costa, Augusto Duarte (Carolina describes how Pinto da Costa gave him "a thick envelope"). But the most sensational accusation of the three was that Pinto da Costa bribed the referee of FC Porto's 2-0 win over eventual 'red lantern' Estrela da Amadora, who finished up with a lame 17 points from their 34 games. "They [the rather aptly named Jacinto Paixão and his match officials] called to ask for fruit tonight. Can I take it to them?" intermediary António Araújo asks Pinto da Costa on one of the tapped phone calls. The 'fruit' was allegedly code for three Brazilian prostitutes. They subsequently gave evidence to the Public Prosecutor and then returned to Brazil. Pinto da Costa's problems do not stop at accusations of bribery, though. Like something out of a Sopranos episode, Carolina Salgado has also fingered her former husband for a hit job, outside the scope of Apito Dourado but riding the same onda. She alleges that in early 2005, the Porto president asked her to arrange for Ricardo Bexiga, a local councillor who was apparently a witness to Pinto da Costa's corrupt practices, to be duffed up. "Jorge asked me to make contacts, I did, the job was done and I paid them," she told TSF Radio. Bexiga escaped with a broken arm, but, as Salgado told TSF, it was meant to go further. She claimed that Pinto da Costa's attorney, Lourenço Pinto, had called and told her: "Congratulations, darling … but he's still talking". Pinto da Costa faces between ten and 25 years in prison if this latter charge is proved. There is grudging respect in non-portista Portugal for a man who, in 25 years as FC Porto president, has turned what was a provincial club round to be champions of Europe twice while eclipsing nearest rivals Benfica to the tune of 15 domestic titles to seven. But diehard non-portistas are rubbing their hands at these developments; they dislike Pinto da Costa for his arrogance, regionalism and, most importantly, power in the game. He is not nicknamed O Papa ('The Pope') for nothing, after all. He is currently the Apito Dourado suspect providing most satisfaction to the media sharks in their feeding frenzy, but the other protagonists are simmering nicely away on the back burner, including 39 referees, the former Liga president Valentim Loureiro, other Liga and Federation officials and various club presidents. Meanwhile, O Papa awaits his fate. "I have faith in the justice of the courts and divine justice", he said recently. If the notoriously sloth-like Portuguese legal system can get its collective finger out, and under the whirlwind that is Maria José Morgado it seems more than ever possible, we may see the former run its course soon enough. (This article appeared in the August 2007 edition of When Saturday Comes)
15/07/07 It was quite an eventful week in Portuguese football. On the transfer front, Selecção 'keeper Ricardo (he of the no-gloves save that put England out of Euro 2004), who seemed to be a (Sporting) club man if ever there was one, fled the Lions' den for Spanish club Real Bétis, proof perhaps, if any was needed, that dollar signs are nowadays a more powerful motivation than any club badge. FC Porto, gorged on cash from the sale of Anderson and Pepe, said that their 'Harry Potter' winger Ricardo Quaresma would be staying at the club, and that influential captain, the Argentinian midfielder Lucho Gonzalez, could go if the right offer came in: Valência are first in the queue. And Benfica … well, Benfica … with record signing (for a foreign player), the Paraguayan striker Óscar Cardozo, still on duty with his national side in the Copa América, the focus turned to those that are here … and veteran midfielder Rui Costa put his seal of approval on two players returning to the Luz as, in his opinion, the best reinforcements of the close season: midfielders Manuel Fernandes from England and Nuno Assis from suspension for doping. The latter can only return officially to action on 26 July, but he nevertheless put a hat-trick away in an unofficial 8-0 trouncing of the Footballers' Union side – made up of out of work players. Then there was the draw for the new Liga programme, which will begin on or around 19 August. FC Porto have perhaps the most difficult start of the 'Big Three', away to Sporting Braga, coached by former Porto stalwart Jorge Costa. Sporting receive Académica at Alvalade in a minor clássico . And Benfica inaugurate Leixões' return to the top flight after 18 years; there is frantic work going on at the Estádio do Mar to make it fit to receive the Benfica hordes.
Along with the draw for the Liga came the draw for the Taça da Liga (the 'League Cup'). This is a brilliant idea: last season the Liga was reduced from 18 to 16 clubs,
ostensibly to make the league more competitive and keep the players fresher. Now they've introduced a new competition to increase the number of games in a season, and on top of that, the Liga
recently voted to consider a return to the 18-club league. The first round of the Taça da Liga involves just teams from the Liga de Honra (second
tier), and will then take in teams from the Liga (top tier). The clubs' enthusiasm for the new competition was summed up best by Nacional president Rui Alves: "Our sole
objective is to get knocked out as quickly as possible." Finally, those Portuguese guys abroad, eh? Not wishing to be left in the shade by the
National team in Euro 2000 (the Abel Xavier handball incident, and ensuing chaos, versus France in the semi-final) and João Pinto's infamous body blow to the referee in
the 2002 World Cup in Korea, the Portugal Under 20s sloped ignominiously out of the World Cup in Canada. They won just one out of their four games in the tournament,
and in the last one, a 0-1 defeat to Chile, managed to get two players sent off in the last five minutes: one, Mano, for hitting an opponent, the other, Zequinha, for snatching the
red card out of the referee's hand as he was showing it to Mano. Coach José Couceiro, also in charge of the recent debacle in the U-21 European Championship,
said afterwards: "I don't see any reason why I should resign." Well, José, don't look now, but … (This article appeared on the international website
08/07/07 Sporting Clube de Portugal have the best youth scheme in the country, possibly in Europe. The likes of Paulo Futre, Luís Figo, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ricardo Quaresma and Nani have passed though it, and remaining there are players such as the much admired and coveted midfielders João Moutinho and Miguel Veloso, both shining at the recent European U-21 Championship. The scheme, aided in recent years by the establishment of the Sporting Academia, near Alcochete to the south of the River Tagus, has been the saviour of the club financially. Sporting's two main rivals, FC Porto and Benfica, cannot boast such success. The last home-grown Benfica player to make any kind of noise domestically and internationally was midfielder Manuel Fernandes, who after two modest seasons in England (Portsmouth and Everton), has now returned to the Luz. Last season, the only home-grown player on view was midfielder João Coimbra, but after just a handful of appearances, he has now been farmed out to Madeiran club Nacional. The club has contracted former striker Rui Águas to head up the scouting department, but it could be years before any effect he may have filters through to the 'A' team. At FC Porto, the story is much the same. Central defender Bruno Alves returned to his mother club a couple of seasons back and has established a good understanding with Brazilian team-mate Pepe, but promising winger Ivanildo has been loaned out for the last two seasons, and forward Vieirinha will face the same fate next. Meanwhile, Portuguese teams continue to invest in 'cheap' players of dubious quality from the South American market and, increasingly, from Eastern Europe. The Big Three have all had their fingers burned in recent seasons. Benfica notoriously signed a couple of Brazilian midfielders in 2004, Everson and Paulo Almeida, both of whom bombed completely, but the club was left paying their salaries. FC Porto have a history of off-loading their best players (this time Anderson, possibly Pepé and Quaresma) and replacing them with unknown quantities that make the grade only on a very hit-and-miss basis: for every Paulo Assunção (the excellent Brazilian defensive midfielder), there's a Claudio Pitbull (the Brazilian forward signed in 2004 and still on 50,000 euros a month, but loaned out to Académica last season and still persona non grata at the Dragão). Other clubs are just as guilty of scooping up quantity, often at the expense of the internally promoted or the tried and tested. Boavista, champions in 2001 but struggling now, have had a massive clear-out of their squad, half of them having their contracts terminated or being transferred or released. Stalwarts like José Manuel (Sporting Braga), Tiago (União de Leiria) and Lucas (Red Star) have been replaced by the speculative likes of Laionel (Anápolis) and Bosancic (Partizan), youngsters who have yet to become accustomed to the Portuguese game. Even coach Jaime Pacheco sees the danger: "I'm making [president] João Loureiro responsible: this squad has to be strengthened with quality players … the squad isn't how I want it to be. To win, we need good players." But Boavista are merely representative of most of the Portuguese clubs' strategy in the transfer market: buy cheap, hope for a miracle. Sporting have the right idea: they have a well grounded internal system that is producing results on the pitch and profits from transfer transactions. The other Portuguese clubs would do well to follow suit. (This artcle appeared on the international website Extra Football)
01/07/07 There are two championships in Portugal: there's the regular one from August to May, won last year by FC Porto, and then there's the unofficial campeonato do defeso, the close-season championship. This one is not fought out on the pitch but in hotels, restaurants and parked cars. The object? To see which club can impress most in the transfer market. There's a lot of pride at stake, and a lot of cutting of throats. The so-called Três Grandes (FC Porto, Benfica and Sporting) are the main protagonists of this sideshow. Year after year, rumours abound of a big player going to one of the three, then being diverted to another amid either overt outrage or feigned indifference from the club losing out. Already this summer FC Porto have snatched Polish midfielder Kazmierczak (ex-Pogon/Boavista) and Brazilian forward Edgar (ex-Beira-Mar) from under Benfica's nose, while Benfica nipped over to Argentina to nab Paraguayan striker Cardozo, apparently on Porto's shopping list. Meanwhile, Sporting are eyeing Barcelona's Argentinian striker Maxi López, serenaded by Benfica on various occasions in recent seasons. There are many similar stories from the past. Before he came to Portugal, Mozambican born Eusébio was being courted by Sporting (he was, after all, playing for Sporting de Lourenço Marques, an affiliate of Sporting Lisbon, at the time), but while Sporting dithered, Benfica stepped in with a firm offer and cash up front, and the rest, as they say, is history. Later, Luís Figo, a product of Sporting's prodigious youth scheme, was within a whisker of being nicked by Benfica, but the Sporting president at the time, Sousa Cintra, was hit by a rare moment of perspicacity and blocked the move. in the other direction, Menino de Ouro João Pinto was tempted, with actual large wads of cash, to swap the Luz for Alvalade in the mid 90s, but this time the then Benfica president, Jorge Brito, stepped in to drag him back. João Pinto did of course subsequently move to Sporting, but on a more amicable basis and after being released from Benfica free of charge in 2000. Then there was the story of Mário Jardel, the best striker in the Portuguese game in recent history, who helped FC Porto to three straight titles from 1996-99. In 1996, Benfica were in negotiations to bring super-Mário to the Luz, but while they haggled with his former club Grêmio over the price, in stepped Porto to take him to the Antas and 130 goals in 125 games. FC Porto and Sporting appear to have the upper hand in this year's campeonato do defeso, with fresh cash to spend from the sale of Anderson (30 million euros) and Nani (25 million) to Manchester United. Benfica, though, appear to have shot their bolt with Cardozo, the club's second most expensive signing ever at 9.1 million euros (second only to Simão Sabrosa, 12 million in 2001). As the teams reunite for pre-season preparation, the finishing touches will be made to the squads in the next few weeks. Then we'll see who has in fact won this close-season tussle. (This article appeared on the international website Extra Football)
|
||||||
