Portuguese Primeira Liga 2017/2018

[_Ivan_]

Opening new season's thread for Portugal league following brand new scandal caused by official Benfica channel.

Benfica announced list of corrupted football clubs worldwide by ranking them on the list numbering the exact ones by criminal activities.
Sources:

https://twitter.com/ActuFoot_/statu...metni-velikani-prijete-joj-tuzbom/994870.aspx

http://www.index.hr/sport/clanak/be...metni-velikani-prijete-joj-tuzbom/994870.aspx (From Croatian paper)



Let's enjoy new season and discuss their fixtures, and news involved to these clubs. p.s. check the 3 italians on the list, and guess who's not there

 

[brehme1989]

They forgot the dirtiest of them all, but that's probably okay for them with all the suspicious transfers between them. Dynamo Berlin should be top of that list. (edit: they actually have the worst of all time listed at #15)

Fiorentina being on such a list is rather hilarious. I mean, if you go by judicial decisions and all that, Lazio is the Italian club that deserves a more bad boys reputation after Juve-Milan.

 

[ADRossi]

I suddenly like Benfica a bit more

 

[brehme1989]

It will be fun to see whether the listed teams will sue or something.

 

[vasilios]

I always knew those Widzew Lodz fuckers were up to no good

 

[Azul]

Oh there´s a Portuguese thread opened, I missed it, unfortunately it´s not open for the best reasons but oh well.

I don´t usually talk about refs and corruption, specially since the big 3 are always in one way of the other "on the green" in the end of the season and the smaller clubs are the one´s with much more to complain about but no one cares about them so it stays that way.
What I will say is that as a portista, and I don´t know if I mentioned it here before, I´m ashamed of the stuff my club did before regarding corruption, specially in the 90´s , we were the best team by far and we almost always win, but, even as a kid growing up, there´s some games where you could feel like there were something going on.
Now what I don´t like is stuff like this kinds of lists or when one of the big 3 clubs president come whining on TV about how they are being wronged when they know damn well that in one time or another their club was in control and doing the same, but no, they wear their white armor like they are sin free without an ounce of shame.

______________
Regarding football that´s what brought us here,

The league started with Porto very strong despite not buying anyone relevant (only a 3rd choice GK) due to the financial state of the club, some players returned from loans and are now playing like Marega, Aboubakar and Hernani, this one not so often.
With a very short team the new coach, and former Inter player, Sérgio Conceição will have a tough task to fight for the title.

Benfica has a gigantic debt and much like Porto did in the past is having a hard time reducing it despite the success on the field and the huge sales of players that they´ve been making in the last years.
They sold a lot again, too much IMO and are now struggling to rebuilt the team. Éderson, Lideloff, N. Semedo and Mitroglou were sold without much particular care and they were nuclear players for the team. Adding to that some replacements that were expected to be great turned very bad like Douglas that arrived from Barcelona, and, has to be said, Gabriel Barbosa, both will likely end the loans on January.
On the other hand they bought Svilar a very young GK that seems to be good, and Krovinovic that I really like.

Sporting is once again the best team of the 3 and did another financial effort to be competitive for the title, maintaining Bas Dost, William and Gelson despite the interest of other clubs was tough but they did it and it´s been crucial as expected. They did sell Adrien who was very important and the captain but for me all the other 3 are much better and tougher to replace.
They also bought players such as Bruno Fernandes, who´s great, Acuña that has been doing good, Doumbia that has been disappointing and will most likely leave in January but was a steal and will earn good cash for them anyway, and also bough 2 RB Piccini and Ristovski as well as Coentrão from Madrid on loan to address the problems of the full backs that were so evident last season.

Porto was on top for most of the season and is playing the best football so far but 2 consecutive draws against Aves away and Benfica at home cost us the spot, if we win tonight we´ll draw with Sporting on the top of the table with Benfica who´s been heavily criticized but realistically is only 3 points behind.

Sporting for me is the favorite having the best team and coach of the league.

 

[Azul]

So we reach Xmas and the league so far is like this

Top scorers

and Assists

There´s not much to add since the last post, Porto won the game that was left in the league and is sharing the 1st place with Sporting again.
Benfica is a close second.

Regarding goal scorers the only surprises are that Dost isn´t scoring as much as expected but it´s still up there with the best and Marega who was viewed as kind of a joke apparently started to score for fun (even though he cost us a draw against Benfica missing 4!! clear goal chances), for more as why he was consider as a joke you can see this video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezSXzSJ5BQ&ab_channel=BestWonderkids ) of his first moments for Porto before going for an 1 year loan.
Aboubakar returned very well to Porto after his loan to Besiktas and has been very important.
Jonas with no surprise, and despite being 33, continues being a beast and one of the reasons Benfica is only 3 pts from the top.

Regarding CL, Porto advanced and will now face Liverpool. Sporting did very well and managed to get 7 points in a group with Barça, Jube and Olympiakos, they will now face Astana in the EL and will most likely pass to later stages. Benfica was very disappointing with 0 point in this campaign.
With the years when Porto and Benfica managed to have good teams and go to later stages in the CL or EL long gone this results hurt us a lot and next season we´ll only get 2 spots for the CL for the first time in many years.

In the EL Braga was the only team to advance winning his group with 10 pts, and will now face Marseille.

In the Portuguese cup Benfica was eliminated in extra time by Rio Ave. So now Porto and Sporting are the best contenders for the trophy, if both win in the quarter finals they´ll face each other in the semis at Dragão. On the other side of the tree Rio Ave is the big favourite to advance to the final.

The last competition is the league cup, Vitória de Setúbal is the only team that is certain to proceed the group stages winning a group that had Benfica, Sporting is the big favourite to advance his group with 2 point ahead with only 1 match left.
In the other 2 groups, Porto drew against a 2nd division Leixões in the 1st match and now they both share the 1st place with 4 points, same for the last group with both Oliveirense and Moreirense with 4 points. Last match will decide it all.

Happy holidays everyone!

 

[ADRossi]

General question for you: Is Jonas actually any good, or does he just benefit from being the best striker on one of the best teams in the league?

 

[Azul]

I like Jonas a lot, and I believe he’s a very good players despite the league, obviously he benefits from playing in a team that dominates 90% of the games and creates a lot of chances but I saw him play for Valencia before signing for Benfica and I remember thinking he was good.
Weaker league or not his numbers are great, specially considering his age and also that he’s not a poacher, he’s very important off the ball as well and can create chances for other players, but his main specialty is the shooting technique, he does it with ease, he is the kind of player that makes it look so easy you know?
His partnership with Mitroglou was great and Benfica is still suffering because of that sale imo but even with a much weaker team this season he continues to score a lot, it’s impressive. Obviously he’ll not leave for a bigger league/club at this point, he’ll most likely go to China next season or so.

 

[Azul]

Big game to start the year, Benfica will face Sporting tonight with only 3 pts between them.

Here´s Benfica expected line up



Benfica usually plays 4-4-2 but this year since Mitroglou left and neither Jimenez nor Seferovic Were that convincing they switched to 4-3-3 with Krovinovic joining the midfield.
Grimaldo, who´s been linked to Napoli for 30M€ in the end of the season, is injured, as usual, and will be replaced by Eliseu.
Luisão is also injured and that leaves Benfica with a very weak defensive sector. The Gk, Varela is a young player from the youth team that returned this year but he´s just average. The best player of the back 5 might be André Almeida who´s strong defensively but lacks preponderance in the attack.



Sporting will face Benfica with all the players expected to start available, is the better team and is in a better form but Benfica is playing at home and with the supporters on their side in this games you never know. The truth is that even though Benfica is struggling this year, in the league they are only 3 points behind the top of the table.

This match will also provide the so wanted return by Fábio Coentrão to Benfica, this time playing... for Sporting, that´s why you should never express your undying love to a club if you don´t mean it, it can backfire in the future. Coentrão grew up as a Sporting fan later player for Benfica and said that as a young guy he knew no better and that Benfica was the club in his heart only to return this season and say that Sporting was his club all along.

I expect Sporting to create a lot of problems for Benfica in the attack, specially the clash between Gelson and Eliseu, Gelson is one of the fastest players and Eliseu is, well... lets say slow to be nice. Bruno Fernandes is expected to try to get Gelson on the back of the defense with passes between Eliseu and the Cb, at least I would if I was Sporting coach.

It will also be interesting to see how Dost will do this game since he usually struggles against bigger clubs.

Benfica is strong on the attack but Sporting fixed his defensive weaknesses this year having in Mathieu and Coates 2 solid Cbs, and Coentrão, when not injured, a good LB. Piccini was also a good surprise, I dind´t know him but he´s been doing well.

Jorge Jesus said we was going to play to win, as a visitor that´s not that often, so I´m hoping for an exciting match with a lot of opportunities.

 

[brehme1989]

Sporting looks quite strong.

Any update on that alleged 2015-16 Benfica title? I hear that there's going to be an investigation or something.

 

[Azul]

Sporting looks quite strong.

Any update on that alleged 2015-16 Benfica title? I hear that there's going to be an investigation or something.

There´s a reason why I haven´t touched that subject, like I said before I don´t like to talk about this kind of stuff extra football.

But since you ask yes, Benfica has been involved in a lot of pressure since the beginning of the season.
First there were leaked mails, that have appeared weekly, some are seeing the light of day by Porto, others the press is releasing. In those mails between members of the Benfica staff and different people of influence, such as league delegates, members of the referees federation and other important positions. In some of the mails you can read stuff like This ref isn´t to be trusted so he can´t reach the 1st division, other mail list the name of the refs with cell number, addresses, if they have mistresses or not (true story), names of the moles they have in other clubs/institutions etc. There are links everywhere online and videos with mails translated to english on youtube if you wish to search for more on the subject, I´ll not post them here since I don´t see the purpose of doing so.
By now Benfica only said that there is a campaign to taint its name but didn´t say that the mails were false, only said that some of them were false, not specifying which ones.

As I don´t want you guys to think that I´m biased since I´m a Porto supporter there´s also a lot of the same thing online, and also legitimate phone calls recordings, in the Apito Dourado case that involve Porto and Boavista.

As of the 15/16 game it was a coincident because they were investigating a case of corruptions/online betting because there are major indicators that 4 Rio Ave players received large sums of money to lose a game last year (they did lose), while they were investigation that apparently the stumbled in some text messages regarding a Rio Ave-Benfica where players were also being influenced to lose that match, as of last week both processes are being under investigation but let´s be real there´s not much going to happen, let´s take Porto by example, since the phone calls intercepted were not a valid form of proof we didn´t get relegated like we should have, Benfica is an even bigger club with much more supporters so if we escaped in some way Benfica, if guilty, will surely find a way out as well.

Now you can go ahead and read the post that started this thread for a quick laugh.

 

[brehme1989]

Now you can go ahead and read the post that started this thread for a quick laugh.

Indeed
I used to like Benfica a lot. Now I can't get to watch many games and don't really care as much. Last few seasons it felt dodgy with all those weird inflated transfers from Olympiakos, who have been accused of money laundering by West Ham and other clubs they've had dealings with. Along with around 90 years of corruption history. If you have dealings with such clubs, you cannot claim to be clean yourself. Same applies to Roma. There was also a scandal somewhere in France relating these three teams and a couple of others for inflated transfers, no idea what they did about it.

 

[Azul]

Crazy end of the season in the Portuguese league.

Porto were leading the table with +5 points from Benfica with 9 games left and pretty much had the league in the bag but 2 consecutive away losses against Paços de Ferreira and Belenenses made Benfica jump to first place with 6 matches to go.
With 4 games to the end of the season Benfica was facing Porto in their stadium, with one point ahead one win for Benfica would almost mean the title, the 5th in a row joining Porto being the only team with 5 consecutive titles.

The game was intense even though it wasn´t the best game ever, Benfica had a better first half but Porto returned in the second half more offensive, Benfica tried to hold the draw in the last 15 minutes but Herrera right as the clock was hitting the 90th minute scored this beauty to make Porto top of the league again.

It was one of those incredible moments of joy that only sports can bring you.

Today Porto managed to win an away match against Marítimo where we usually lose points, 5 years without a win there, with another late goal, this time by Marega in the 88th minute which adding to the surprising loss by Benfica at home leaves us one point away from the title.

I´m still not celebrating though because this last 4 years without a trophy have been tough so let´s just end the season just to be sure, light a candle for me guys.

Next week there´s a huge match between Sporting and Benfica, both 5 points behind Porto, neither can lose points if they want to keep fighting for the title and also the 2nd place is extra important this season since for the first time in a lot of years we only get 2 CL spots, with the debt any of our top teams have missing the CL is a huge blow so it´ll be a big battle. I´ll try to make a preview of the match in more detail closer to the game.

Quick mention to Braga, that have been immense this season and are only 3 pts behing Sporting and Benfica, with 74 points after todays win the have beaten their points record in the league, in most seasons they would be fighting for the title, just to stress their achievement even more the 5th on the league is 27 points behind them!

 

[Azul]

It is done! So happy!

(not my pic)

Sorry for the vertical video, was filming on the instagram app

 

[Azul]

Sad news on our league.

Sporting went to the last round of the league on 2nd place but with the same points as Benfica, Sporting needed to at least get the same result as Benfica to secure his place in the table to earn the very important millions that the came with the CL spot.
Sporting ended up having a bad day and lost against Marítimo and Benfica won at home. It was a huge blow financially for them but it´s part of football.

There were some insults at the end of the match but nothing substantial.

Keep in mind that this has been a very controversial season from the beginning mostly because of Sporting president. Just recently after Sporting lost 0-2 against Atlético Madrid in the Europa League Bruno de Carvalho made a rant on his facebook page (it´s usual for him) openly criticizing his team and even particular players that made mistakes during the match. He mentioned both CBs that made mistakes that cost Sporting both goals going as far as saying that they played with 9 instead of 11. He also criticized Coentrão and Bas Dost that received yellows becoming unavailubale to play the 2nd leg.
I believe that players can be criticized, and the president has the authority to do so, but not using a public facebook rant like a teenager.

The players felt attacked in their honor and the captain (Rui Patrício) also released a post with the support of almost every player of the team using social media (instagram I believe) that indirectly criticized the president for the lack of support during a loss.
Like a soap opera the president retaliated and suspended all the players that signed the document calling them something that if my my English level doesn´t fail me it´s like spoiled brats. He also said that he was going to play the next game with the B team.
The backlash was immense and pretty much everyone was against Sportings president, included the coach that sided with the players, apart from a fraction of people that supported the president. Eventually a meeting took place and they reached na understanding. Keep in mind that at that point Sporting was still running for the title, running for the Portuguese cup final, won the league cup and had a minimal chance to surpass Atlético at home to go to the final of the EL. No one understood the timing either.

Now that the background is established, let´s get back to present days.

Yesterday Sportings training center was attacked by a group of 50 people that vandalized the place and hit Bas Dost, Acuña, Rui Patrício, William Carvalho, Battaglia and also Jorge Jesus and his assistant. Not that it matters because nothing justifies hitting players but Dost was Sporting top scorer last season and also this season having scored 60+ goal this 2 season, Patrício and Carvalho are club legends also Batagglia had a very good season.

Bas Dost on the image being treated.

I don´t think I mentioned but Sporting plays the cup final this weekend and Bas Dost got bruised and is out and other players are apparently talking about not playing the match.
There are also rumors that the players have requested juridical advise from the union to be released from their contracts.

It´s a shitstorm and completely out of character in a peaceful country like Portugal, everyone is in shock.

 

[_Ivan_]

What a shitheads, yet they call themselves a fans

 

[thatdude]

What a shitheads, yet they call themselves a fans

After reading that story I wouldn’t be surprised if the president set it up

 

[ScottishInterista]

As i said in another thread this is well within the grounds of contract termination. Would be a shame for a team like sporting to lose these players but id be surprised if many of the first team stay considering they could be at least squad players in the bigger leagues. This is a shocking way to treat a team you support.

- - - Updated - - -

Just seen that Sporting are now under investigation for max fixing in their title winning season and their director of football has been arrested...

 

[Azul]

As i said in another thread this is well within the grounds of contract termination. Would be a shame for a team like sporting to lose these players but id be surprised if many of the first team stay considering they could be at least squad players in the bigger leagues. This is a shocking way to treat a team you support.

- - - Updated - - -

Just seen that Sporting are now under investigation for max fixing in their title winning season and their director of football has been arrested...

That’s related to handball, their last football title was 16 years ago or something like that.
That investigation apparently led to some stuff regarding football and they are going to start investigating football as well.

Update about the players, they all signed a statement saying they will play in the cup final.