Thursday Table Talk

We’re two matches into the season and the table is starting to take some sort of shape. I used to boycott putting the table in the weekly recaps because I was sick of seeing Porto at the top for the past three years.

However, now that I have my own Portuguese team blog with Sporting I guess I’ll have to transfer the bias over there and do my best to be somewhat objective. I can’t promise that I’ll be entirely unbiased, but neither can the anchors on FoxNews.

This isn’t going to be a weekly bit, as I’ll have the table at the bottom of the recaps going forward. I just figured I’d give you a quick peek at the clubs and what points they’ve gotten so far:

1 – Nacional – 6
2 – Sporting – 6
3 – V.Setúbal – 4
4 – V.Guimarães – 4
5 – Porto – 4
6 – E. Amadora – 3
7 – Braga – 3
8 – Naval – 3
9 – Leixões – 3
10 – Académica – 3
11 – Benfica – 2
12 – P. Ferreira – 1
13 – Belenenses – 1
14 – Rio Ave – 1
15 – Marítimo – 0
16 – Trofense – 0

I obviously don’t think Porto and Benfica will end up where they are presently. The two newly promoted teams are somewhat predictably in the bottom three and top o’ the table Nacional have gotten their six points on two wins over a couple of relatively cocka teams (Leixões and Naval). V.Setúbal have a bunch of promising young stars, led by Portuguese U(fill in the age) attacker Bruno Gama. They may surprise a few people and finish somewhere near the top three this year. Benfica are still a work in progress and could suffer a few more setbacks going forward. A year out of Europe completely isn’t entirely out of the question but I think Quique can right that ship eventually to salvage some sort of decent season.

The table from two matches into a season rarely looks like the table on the final day of the season. On the other hand, the games count just as much at the beginning as they do at the end, so a quick start never hurt anyone.

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Jornada 2 Recap: Nacional in First Place, Classico Ends In A Draw

I’m in surprisingly decent shape this morning after a torrid weekend of drinking my face off and manning the grill for twenty people yesterday. As you probably already know, Quaresma dipped on Porto and headed to Inter Milan with fellow Portuguese midfielder Pelé and some cold hard cash coming Porto’s way.

Given Quaresma’s past failure at Barcelona, I’m surprised Porto were able to hold Inter up for that type of payment and the level of player that Pelé is. While I love Quaresma’s ability and think he has the skill set to be all world, he seems to take whole matches off at a time. He’s shown that he can track back and defend his position somewhat, but those instances are few and far between. For the National Team’s sake I hope Mourinho can get a lot out of him because new Portugal boss Carlos Queiroz failed to include Quaresma in his squad for the two upcoming World Cup qualifiers.

While Quaresma had a great deal of the Portuguese football headlines, his old teammates and a few others played some good ol’ football this weekend. Here’s how it shook out:

Belenenses 2 - 2 P. Ferreira
Benfica 1 - 1 Porto
Nacional 2 - 1 Naval
Académica 1 - 0 Rio Ave
Trofense 1 - 2 Leixões
V.Setúbal 1 - 0 E.d. Amadora
Marítimo 0 - 1 V.Guimarães
Braga 0 - 1 Sporting

Hero of the Week — Rodrigo, Belenenses — His team had no answer for substitute William who came on just after the hour mark and tied the match with a 72′ strike and then gave visiting Paços de Ferreira 2-1 lead on the 90th minute. However, he managed to head home the game tying goal in the 95th minute, salvaging a point for Belenenses. A loss would have had them bottom feeding with Marítimo and Trofense who are still seeking out their first points of the season.

Goats of the Week — Paços de Ferreira’s Free Kick Defense — Watch the video below. The defending players allow THREE blue shirts to essentially stand there, decide who has the best angle, have a cigarette and a sandwich, and then head the ball home for the game tying goal. Abysmal.

Clean Sheets of the Week — Peskovic (Académica), Bruno Vale (V.Setúbal), Nilson (V.Guimarães), and Rui Patrício (Sporting)

I’m going to throw a table up tomorrow and discuss it then since I have a decent amount of real life work to get to this afternoon. Going forward, the table will go here. Yay.

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Jornada 2 Preview: Class-ee-koh Time

It’s week two and already we have a massive match to be played between Benfica and Porto at da Luz. Benfica looked abysmal last week and escaped with a point against new boys Rio Ave. Porto on the other hand looked like they hadn’t missed a step from last year in their 2-0 win over Belenenses. If Porto win to the tune of 3-0, Benfica will be damaged psychologically and cries for Quique’s head will start from the historically impatient fan base. On the other hand, if Benfica can put on a good show in front of their fans and pull this one out, they can use this match as a means of saying “Okay, now we know that the ‘New Benfica’ has finally arrived and we’ve got a shot at this.” Personally, I think this match is way too early in the season for a Benfica which has a gajillion new signings and is still struggling to find its identity. I wouldn’t be surprised with a Porto thrashing of the Eagles here. Benfica have done nothing to impress thus far and if they’re going to continue to rely on Nuno Gomes for their offense, then they’re really in deep shit. On to the matches…

-=Jornada 2=- All times Eastern (New York City). This week’s edition of FixtureFacts drops da knowledge on each club’s current boss. I know I’ve done this in the past but the managerial situation in Portugal is so volatile that since the last time I gave the associated club/boss combos, I’m sure a bunch have changed. Besides, we have two new teams now!

Friday, August 29th @ 15:30 — Belenenses (Casemiro Mior) v. P. Ferreira (Paulo Sérgio)

Saturday, August 30th @ 15:45 — Benfica (Quique Flores) v. Porto (Jesualdo Ferreira)

Sunday, August 31st @ 11:00 — Académica (Domingos Paciência) v. Rio Ave (João Eusébio)
Sunday, August 31st @ 11:00 — Nacional (Manuel Machado) v. Naval (Ulisses Morais)
Sunday, August 31st @ 11:00 — Trofense (António Conceição) v. Leixões (Ulisses Morais)
Sunday, August 31st @ 13:00 — V. Setúbal (Daúto Faquirá) v. E.d. Amadora (Raul Silva)

Monday, September 1st @ 14:15 — Marítimo (Lori Sandri) v. V. Guimarães (Manuel Cajuda)
Monday, September 1st @ 16:15 — Braga (Jorge Jesus) v. Sporting (Paulo Bento)

The big attraction is obviously the Classico between the Dragons and the Eagles in Lisbon. However, Monday night’s encounter between Sporting and the always pesky Braga in Casa Braga should prove to be a difficult test for Paulie Bento’s boys. Enjoy your Labor Day weekend (if you get Monday off, of course), and make an effort to try something new while you’re getting loaded and eating BBQ. I for one will attempt to get my wife to try out a blumpkin. If that fails, I can have a crack at convincing her to get one of her smokin’ hot friends in the sack for a three way. Wish me luck!

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Champions League Groups Set

With Guimarães losing to FC Basel 1893 last night, Porto and Sporting stand alone as the sole Portuguese representatives in this season’s iteration of the UEFA Champions League.

At the draw, UEFA officials made sure to remind us that a cloud exists over Porto’s participation this year due to their implication in the Golden Whistle bribery scandal. If nothing’s been done with the arduous appeals process that has taken place thus far, I’m sure nothing’s going to happen to their status between now and Matchday 1.

The draw was completed earlier today and the groups for the two are as follows:

Group C
Barcelona
Sporting
FC Basel 1893
Shakhtar Donetsk

Group G
Arsenal
Porto
Fenerbahçe
Dynamo Kyiv

For me, Sporting have the easier draw of the two. Some were calling Group G the toughest of the lot, as teams such as Turkish side Fenerbahçe and Ukranian club Dynamo Kyiv tend to pose difficult away test and are tricky encounters no matter where the match is played. In spite of Porto’s domination of the league last year, I actually think Sporting have a better shot of making it through simply by looking at the relative strength of the two groups. On the other hand, Sporting just got their asses handed to them by Real Madrid 3 - 5 in a preseason friendly yesterday and Porto started off the domestic season looking rather dominant, so what the hell do I know?

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Vitória de Guimarães For The Portuguese Trifecta?

It’s Judgement Day for Smokin’ Manny Cajuda and his boys from Guimarães. Tonight (locally), they square against FC Basel 1893 at St. Jakob Park in Switzerland for the right to play in the group stages of this year’s Champions League tournament.

The first match, played at Estádio D. Afonso Henriques in Portugal, yielded a 0 - 0 draw. Although the match is being played away, Guimarães have the upper hand when it comes to the tiebreaker as the away goals are worth more on aggregate than home goals (sorry for those of you who know this already, I just assume you’re all moronic assholes, since that’s what I encounter 95% of the time in “real” life).

If Guimarães manage to pull this one out, they’ll make it to the group stages of the Champions League for the first time ever. They’ll also join last year’s Portuguese League champions Porto and second place finishers Sporting in the round of 32. Guimarães would probably have their asses handed to them in group play, but the amount of money and prestige that comes with this type of competition is immense, especially to a club like Guimarães.

Even though my favorite club is fresh off a Champions League final heart breaker, nothing gets me going more from a club football standpoint than to hear the music below played. Hopefully the theme will ring in the ears of Manny’s men after the final whistle is blown tonight in Basel.

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