Portugal: Weekly Round-Up

This is bare-faced hype, of course, but the three national sports papers published daily (the others are ‘A Bola’ and ‘O Jogo’) often have to bend over backwards to find an angle that will shift copies.

The photo accompanying Record’s bold assertion was of newcomer Izmailov turning away after scoring Sporting’s winner (an excellent swerving drive from outside the area) against FC Porto in the 29th Supertaça (de Cândido de Oliveira, a former national team coach and journalist). This is the football season’s annual curtain raiser that pits the previous season’s Liga Champions (this time FC Porto) against the winners of the Taça de Portugal (Sporting). The Supertaça is actually a fair reflection of FC Porto’s hegemony over Portuguese football in recent years: they’ve won 15, Sporting six, Benfica four, Boavista three and Vitória de Guimarães one.

Source: Sporting Lisbon official website.

Like last weekend’s Clássico between Sporting and Benfica for the Guadiana Tournament, the game was a poor advertisement for the coming season, with heart too often ruling head and the top players (Quaresma for Porto, Liedson for Sporting) firing squibs. It was also an opportunity for Porto coach Jesualdo Ferreira to get in the first moan of the season against the referee, for an alleged penalty not given Porto’s way. There’ll be a lot more whingeing to come, and not just from the Dragões.

Boavista coach Jaime Pacheco was also flexing his muscles on the referee-criticising front after his side went down 1-0 at Beira-Mar of the Liga de Honra (second tier) in the second round of the Taça de Liga. Boavista midfielder Diakité was (justifiably, as it happens) sent off with a direct red early in the second half, seriously prejudicing the team’s performance. But their performances are still ragged affairs; former Stoke City (English Championship) striker Sambégou Bangourade of Guinea-Conacri, presented Monday, was the club’s 17th (!) signing of the season. At this rate, it will take two or three seasons for the players to get to know each other …

The Taça da Liga, sponsored by Carlsberg, is in theory a good idea. It involves only the 32 clubs from the top two divisions; the first round is between clubs from the Liga de Honra; the second round includes clubs from the bottom half of last season’s Liga; and the third round brings in the top teams. The club placed lower in last season’s standings always plays at home. It’s provided the Liga de Honra and the more modest Liga sides with good, competitive warm-up games … but it remains to be seen how the top teams react to having what may be an unwelcome competition on their calendars come mid-winter, when the Liga and Europe are uppermost in their minds.

One thing the Taça da Liga has not been so far is a particular hit with the public. Apart from games involving Leixões and Vitória de Guimarães, whose fans are notoriously fanatical, the competition has been played out before almost empty stadiums, the beach with apparently a more enticing siren call than the pitch. But this is no news in Portugal, where viewing from a bar or the sofa seems generally to be preferred to an expensive (by local standards) trip to the stadium. Paços de Ferreira, who have qualified for Europe for the first time in their history, staged a presentation game at the weekend against Sparta Rotterdam (2-1) … in front of just 200 spectators.

Meanwhile, all in Portuguese football look on in envy at the attendances and atmosphere generated by the game in England and Spain, given blanket coverage on the nationwide cable channel SportTv. And they look on, and on, and on …

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