Portugal: Weekly Round-Up

Famously it happened at FC Porto before a ball had been kicked in earnest in August 2004, post-Mourinho Luigi del Neri given no time to warm the dug-out seat. This season it’s another Grande that’s jumped the gun: Benfica have sacked their coach.

Fernando Santos was never a very popular figure at the Luz; a confessed Benfica fan, his main crime was seen as having coached Sporting and, more poisonously for Benfiquistas, FC Porto to the fifth title of their probably never again attainable, by any club, Penta (five league titles in a row) in the late 90s.

Benfica had played just two official games before Santos was shown the door. Midweek, the side put in a pale performance against a useful FC Copenhagen at the Luz in the first leg of the third qualifying round of the Champions League and were ‘saved’ by two moments of inspiration from oldster Rui Costa, although the result gives no guarantees for the final outcome of the tie. An ominous sign for Santos was the whistling from the crowd before half-time.

Then in the first Liga game of the season, another weedy display against newcomers Leixões (back in the top flight for the first time in 18 years) ending in a 1-1 draw. Benfica had gone in front a minute from time; Fernando Santos, never one (perhaps unwisely for him) to hide his feelings, was seen crossing himself after Petit’s (unique) header went in, confirming perhaps that his tactics were based more on a wing and a prayer than on wingers and play-makers. You could have put money on Benfica not holding the lead going into added time, and sure enough, defensive disarray let in Nigerian midfielder Udochukwo Nwoko for the equaliser in the dying seconds.

The Benfica president, Luís Filipe Vieira, should perhaps have let Santos go at the end of a season that saw them winning no trophy and finishing third in the Liga, giving them the chore of qualifying for the Champions League Group Stage. But the ‘Engineer’ was kept on, and if the truth be told, his already fragile position with Benfica fans was exacerbated by the club’s close-season transfer strategy … or lack of it.

Key player and captain Simão Sabrosa got his wish (at the third time of asking) to leave the club on a lucrative contract (God, how they miss him!), diminutive Italian striker and crowd favourite Fabrízio Miccoli was not considered important enough to hold on to, and on the eve of the Copenhagen game, with his name already on the team sheet in bold black biro, Manuel Fernandes fled the coop to return to the relative sanity of Everton. In their place, Santos was left with the undoubted quality of Paraguayan striker Óscar Cardozo but the dubious value of (admittedly battling) Argentinian striker Ruben Bergessio, American Freddy Adu, looking all of his 18 years in his début against Copenhagen, and Argentinian Angel di Maria, who arrived injured and has yet to line up.

Add to this injuries to central defenders Luisão and Zoro, meaning that in the absence of other solutions, Greek midfielder Katsouranis has had to fall back to the centre of defence, and we can see that Benfica’s season plan appears to have been scribbled on the back of a cigarette packet. But nudging the wobbling Fernando Santos into a topple, Luís Filipe Vieira insisted that any coach would be delighted to work with the squad that Santos had at his disposal. Santos said that he was surprised at what had happened; he was the only one in Portugal.

Meanwhile, Vieira nipped over to Spain to secure the services of Spanish coach José António Camacho, well-liked by Benfiquistas and returning to the Luz after a relatively successful spell between 2002 and 2004. He will be Benfica’s eighth coach under Vieira, who became president in November 2003.

Phil Town is the author of the English-language Portuguese football site footballportugal.com.pt.