Filipe Sena
There’s absolutely no doubt about which team was the best in the past year of Portuguese football (and before that too!).
FC Porto, managed by Jesualdo Ferreira, were able to win last year’s Bwin Liga and, judging by their performances so far, are ready to do it again. Porto have just completed a sensational first half of the championship here in Portugal and have only been defeated once, against Nacional da Madeira (a notoriously tricky place to go). This was more than enough to hand them an astonishing 12 points of advantage over second placed Benfica.
On the subject of Benfica, we can say that 2007 was a disastrous year. 06/07 season was a season to forget. Nothing went smoothly for the SLB lads. Among injuries and indiscipline was a complete lack of talent displayed by some of the new signings. Luck just didn’t want anything to do with this bunch.
As such, it wasn’t hard to guess what would happen in the summer transfer market: Benfica armed themselves with a big budget to embark on a big spending spree.
The Paraguayan “Tacuara” Cardoso was as much a personal gamble of the President, Luis Filipe Vieira, as a potential financial risk to the health of the club. This player established a new record for a Portuguese side, being transferred for 9 Million Euros! Most of the Bwin teams don’t have half of this amount for their season budget! And they are professionals as well.
Other big signings for Benfica’s squad were the famous and future Pelé (assumed by Pelé himself), North American, Freddy Adu, a young attacking-midfielder/striker and the former PSG left-winger, Cristian Rodriguéz.
Obviously this wasn’t enough! Otherwise the SLB team would be closer to FC Porto, but maybe they’ll improve in the second half of the season.
The biggest disappointment of the year was, obviously, Sporting Lisbon. Last season was a total disaster for Benfica’s arch rivals. The 3rd place finish was only sufficient to grant access to the Champions League qualifiers which, eventually, granted them the qualification to the group stage.
There weren’t too many signings for a Sporting side that needed improving, as the financial policies that have been put in place by the Alvalade stadium team force the management (led by Soares Franco) to cut down expenses, and work with upcoming talent from the Sporting youth teams.
The fruits of this policy have already been seen; Sporting were able to generate revenue from a bunch of young stars, taking Cristiano Ronaldo (beginning of 2005/2006) and Nani (end of 2006/2007), both transferred to Alex Ferguson’s Man Utd team, as examples. And there’s still talent in the team, with players like Miguel Veloso, a strong and technically gifted midfielder (21 years old), the team captain João Moutinho, an intelligent and accurate defensive midfielder (23 years old) and even Romagnolli, the brilliant Argentine attacking-midfielder.
This though does have a drawback and it is of course the lack of experience and lack of influential leader to drive the team forward in difficult times. When we look at FC Porto, we see a mature team, with players that have worked together for 2 to 3 years and have experience of competing at the very highest level. Sporting has genuine talent on their side, but that lack of experience is an irrefutable factor and it goes a long way to explaining their troubled year.
A word must be reserved for Braga, too. They ended last season with a brilliant year behind them of which they were justifiably proud, and are ready to repeat the trick this term. With a competitive team, a young coach and stable finances (more often the exception than the rule in Portuguese football) everything is in place for another great season of progress for the “arsenal’” side. (Their shirts resemble those of the London team, Arsenal, with white and red vertical stripes.)
It’s been a year to forget for Porto’s other team, Boavista. Bad management led to severe debts to the Portuguese financial office amongst other creditors. Some players’ contracts were impounded and even auctioned in public. If a Portuguese civilian wanted to have a professional player, this would be the time. (This is a standard action when there’s a debt owed to the government, but, usually, only physical objects are sold and Boavista had ran out of these!).
Now, the club is struggling to get back onto its feet. With all these problems impacting on the team’s performance, a dark future is expected for the former Bwin league champions (1 win, 2001).
