Portugal: Weekly round-up

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 …