Portuguese Football 2017/2018

That's only if the ref deems it to be a genuine attempt to play the ball, he must have felt it was a deliberate trip. Hard to call, to be fair.
funnily enough, i got sent off for that exact same challenge last Saturday and the ref told me after the game that had my challenge been in the box then he would have booked me. I think there is so much open to interpretation these days that even the refs are confused.
 
Now they will not complain about VAR, good decision, gotta say today Feirense and Portimonense showed there are good players and good coaching even with low budgets.
 
Losing 1-0 at home to Portimonense. Penalty, red card, André Almeida wonder goal, VAR denies the equalizer in the 90th minute. Another day at the office.

At least we won with a 96th minute penalty. Can't imagine how frustrated Porto fans must be after watching these two games back to back.
 
Meh expected tbh, even if Portimonense played well imo.
 
Losing 1-0 at home to Portimonense. Penalty, red card, André Almeida wonder goal, VAR denies the equalizer in the 90th minute. Another day at the office.

At least we won with a 96th minute penalty. Can't imagine how frustrated Porto fans must be after watching these two games back to back.
VAR is going to change the dynamic of the league, for better imo, even if it can give a heart attack.
 
I was in favour of VAR, and on balance I still am, but having watched it in effect in Italy and now in Portugal today I can understand why people are against it. The emotion the Portimonense players and fans must have felt at the late goal to make it 2-2, only for it to be chalked off a minute later, must really suck. Especially when it is for a marginal offside.
 
I think it will ruin football if they review these decisions only when goals are scored. All the bad offside decisions that deny goals/goal scoring opportunities will stand. They'll then scrutinise all the actual goals scored and chalk plenty off. There will be far less goals scored I think.

It should be more like cricket where close decisions stick with the officials on the field decision. Only the howlers are changed.
 
I was in favour of VAR, and on balance I still am, but having watched it in effect in Italy and now in Portugal today I can understand why people are against it. The emotion the Portimonense players and fans must have felt at the late goal to make it 2-2, only for it to be chalked off a minute later, must really suck. Especially when it is for a marginal offside.
Nope, the decision was right and that is what matters, maybe in England you can live with that, in Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain and other countries with the level of suspicion there is around the referees is the best it can happen.

If it wasn't for VAR my club would be with less 4 points now, and as usual others would come and say stop complaining and play more, now I know in the future it will happen against me, but it reduces the level of big mistakes imo, not perfect of course.
 
I think it will ruin football if they review these decisions only when goals are scored. All the bad offside decisions that deny goals/goal scoring opportunities will stand. They'll then scrutinise all the actual goals scored and chalk plenty off. There will be far less goals scored I think.

It should be more like cricket where close decisions stick with the officials on the field decision. Only the howlers are changed.

This is what I was thinking before, but I suppose you then have to decide when is the wrong decision a 'howler'? The current system is the simplest and fairest, in spite of its pitfalls.
 
Directly from Bonfim, low assistance has usual. Vitória presents itself with an attacking line up.

I have faith in a win today.

Edit

1 - 0

Penalty kick in favour of the home team.

2 - 0 in 2 minutes.

Edit 2

Full time: 2 - 0
 
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Directly from Bonfim, low assistance has usual. Vitória presents itself with an attacking line up.

I have faith in a win today.

Edit

1 - 0

Penalty kick in favour of the home team.

2 - 0 in 2 minutes.

Edit 2

Full time: 2 - 0

Nice win for you guys. Meanwhile Abel keeps getting closer and closer to getting sacked.

Did Xadas play well?
 
Back from weekend.

Today is the last game of round 5. Aves vs Belenenses. Tricky game, since in normal conditions Aves would be favourites to win, but their season start was so poor that I think Belenenses has a chance to get something out of this game.

About this weekend results:

Estoril 0-2 Moreirense
Unfaior result for Estoril. They tried, dominated most of the game, but Moreirense was too cynical. The game was closer to 1-1 than to 0-2, but Estoril eventually goot too much balanced for the attack and got caught on counter, even though the second goal was a mistake from the defender who failed to clear the ball, making an assist instead.
I don't know what happened to the VAR here, but he totally ignored a clear handball by Moreirense at first half.

Guimarães 1-0 Boavista
Another tricky result. The draw would be a much better result. Both teams played bad football, but Douglas (Guimarães keeper) made the difference with a couple of miracle saves and was clearly MOTM.

Setúbal 2 - 0 Braga
A fantastic first half from Setúbal made the game easier. Braga got more possession in the second half, but the end product was very poor.

FC Porto 3-0 Chaves
Tricky result, and mainly due to individual quality from Porto players. Even after the 1-0 Chaves looked dangerous. Had Chaves won this match, wouldn't be much a surprise. After the 2-0 they got demoralized and dropped their guts. If Chaves just get things straight at the back, they can become a very dangerous team.

Maritimo 1-0 Rio Ave.
Maritimo played 66 minutes with one extra and only managed to score in the last minute. Rio Ave deserved the point IMHO.

Tondela 2-2 Paços de Ferreira
Both teams deserved to win. Great game, good chances with both teams trying to win the match. Pepa was very slow to react at Seabra's substitutions and that costed him the game. A good game by Antonio Xavier from Paços.

Benfica 2-1 Portimonense
Portimonenses deserved the draw IMHO. They played well, even with 10 men they were working hard. The penalty was acceptable, but it wouldn't had shocked me if the ref just said play on. The red card was too much. Yellow would be more appropriate. Benfica is quite poor defensively this season.

Feirense 2-3 Sporting
Feirense did a very good game too. Sporting needed 6 more minutes to get the goal from a VAR decision. Fair decision, nothing to point. It is quite strange to see a Jorge Jesus team so disorganized on the field.
 
I think it will ruin football if they review these decisions only when goals are scored. All the bad offside decisions that deny goals/goal scoring opportunities will stand. They'll then scrutinise all the actual goals scored and chalk plenty off. There will be far less goals scored I think.

It should be more like cricket where close decisions stick with the officials on the field decision. Only the howlers are changed.

They expected to counteract this by hoping that linesmen let play continue more often due to having the safety net of a wrongful goal being disallowed.

The rule has always been the case that "on doubt, let it play" but this obviously doesn't work in real life. A linesman that stops play wrongfully, will be noticed at the time by fans and pundits and then quickly forgotten as no one would know what would happen. A linesman that allowed play to continue and let a milimetric offside goal stand would be lambasted by fans, pundits, coaches the entire season. No incentive for them actually following the rules.

Judging an offside in real time is just physically impossible to do right all the time, no matter how goos you are. Their job involves a lot of wild guessing. Fans, of course, don't understand this and are unforgiving.

Now with VAR that incentive has been turned around and they should be able to let play continue more often, but they will need to be reminded of it by the authorities, it's a change in approach that will take them a long time to adapt.
 
The round 5 is over!

Aves 2-1 Belenenses.

Belenenses started the game very well, but Aves got the control of the matchm even though Domingos complains about unfair result, it really wasn't. Aves createrd more chances and got a fair victory.
Belenenses squad is weaker this year and I suspect it will be a tough season for Domingos, which I suspect won't be there at Decemeber, at this rte.

Belenenses had a decent start, balancing things and even got ahead in the goal tally. But Aves was too strong for them.

After round 5:
35iydzt.jpg


Round 6 Preview:
15.09. 20:30 Paços Ferreira - Vitória Setúbal
An all can happen game, but Setúbal has a good chance to take something out of this game

16.09. 16:00 Maritimo - Aves
Marítimo is quite strong at home. Even the top teams usually drop points at Barreiros.

16.09. 18:15 Boavista - Benfica
Always a tough stadium to visit. Boavista can be a difficult team if Benfica doesn't score in the first half.

16.09. 20:30 Sporting - Tondela
Easy game for Sporting. Tondela will be an easy prey.

17.09. 16:00 Belenenses - Estoril
This is an important game for both teams, even though we are at season start, Belenenses needs urgently to start colecting more points.

17.09. 18:00 Rio Ave - FC Porto
Another tough stadium to visit, Rio Ave can make Porto's life difficult. They have a decent team and if Porto plays like last game, they can make their lives very difficult indeed.

17.09. 20:15 Braga - Vitória Guimarães
Protect yourselves, ladies and gentlemen. This is the biggest derby from Minho. The rivalry between these two teams is so huge that the police treats this match with special security measures.

18.09. 19:00 Portimonense - Feirense
Portimonense is hungry for points. Feirense is very organized. I think Feirense has all the conditions to get something from here. Portimonense will be anxious.

18.09. 21:00 Chaves - Moreirense
Chaves has shown they can play good football. if only they had better defenders and a more cynical striker... I think Machado pragmatism can get them a point or three, unless Chaves keeps improving their defensive mistakes and finishing.
 
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Vitória will always have a chance in every game, we just need the attack units to score the goals.

Chaves didn't get beaten to a pulp in setúbal just because of chances missed, it could have been 5 or 6.

On the other games we can say the referees where at fault but we need to score more and not commit errors on the defense
 
16.09. 20:30 Sporting - Tondela
Easy game for Sporting. Tondela will be an easy prey.

This is the kind of game we've been struggling with since JJ came here and this time it's after a tough trip to Greece. It can turn out to be an easy game but if it's like our other home games so far this season we'll struggle.
 
Agree with all that. About the bolded part, i saw JJ flash interview and apparently Mathieu wasn't supposed to play tonight, he was sick during the week. He also talked about Coates suffering the effects of jet lag. It wasn't the best performance in defensive terms (Coates did score and won the pen though) by our center backs but they have an excuse tonight. They have been amongst our best players, so i forgive this "faux pas".

Yea but thats a perfect example why we shouldnt have been so careless with that position this season.
Even if they arent at 100%, god forbid Tobias or André Pinto get to play...
 
Nice victory from Sporting at Faliro. The shaky defence and some baffling defending could have costed the victory, though.

Benfica didn't play well and it didn't help that Vitória made some terrible decisions on the bench. Have to say that the PK awarded to CSKA was kinda forced one, Almeida really has his arms behind his back. But Benfica totally lost midfield control after that and the second goal came naturally.

Tough game for Porto, but they usually are very solid at home.
 
First sacking of the season: Miguel Leal abandoned Boavista. No that unexpected, Boavista has been doing this in an atempt to find stability as soon as possible.

Jorge Simão is the choice. Not a surprise, since he's a manager who was doing a very decent career until he got to Braga and kinda failed.
 
Nice victory from Sporting at Faliro. The shaky defence and some baffling defending could have costed the victory, though.
Lacking contol of the game is always a problem for Jorge Jesus teams, also Jonathan Silva being worse than Zeegellar didn't help. First time in my life I watched a portuguese team playing in Greece finishing the first half where they could have won 5:0 imho.
Benfica didn't play well and it didn't help that Vitória made some terrible decisions on the bench.
You can copy paste this to Sergio Conceição also, I think yesterday was the last match in the Champions League where Porto will play with 2 on central midfield. Must say even being rival clubs I don't like to see Benfica or Porto losing at home with CSKA or Besiktas. As I said a lot of times here, since 2010 the level of our league is fallind down imo.
Jorge Simão is the choice. Not a surprise, since he's a manager who was doing a very decent career until he got to Braga and kinda failed.
Not directly related to Jorge Simão, but when I mentioned Mou, Jardim, Fonseca, Conceição or Vitória on the first line of portuguese managers, maybe the last 2 should be moved to the second lines.

Imho Paulo Fonseca is way above Conceição or Vitória after watching Shaktar vs Napoli, would be interesting to see Fonseca replacing JJ at the end of this season :lol:.

Keep going with your posts on the best portuguese football thread ever. :cool:
 
Final note is that agreeing on last week comments from Manuel Machado about the inequalities on the distribution of money in the league, I always said the problem also has to do with coaching and mentality, so no surprise on the way Rio Ave played against Benfica, or the way Tondela defeated Moreirense, Miguel Cardoso or Pepa have nothing to do with the old school Machado belongs of the autobus and pick a point mentality.

Yeah but at the end of the day, the big 3 are now with 14 wins in 15 matches, and 1 draw.

Now imagine what small teams with those talented coaches and youth setups could do in a fair system. Maybe we could actually have an enjoyable league to watch.
 
Yes the level of our league is relatively falling down but I don't think there's anything we can do about that right now.

France, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, at least these soon or later (France and Russia already are, and domestic-league-wise France has been better for a long time now) will surpass us in european performances (historically it will still take a while, and as it is more long term it's not certain too because something good may happen to us, it's more unpredictable).
All the football money we have is syphoned into just 3 clubs, and still those can't compete finantially with the big clubs of these countries.
The power of these leagues' "minnows" are also incredibly stronger than those of our league.

If there is no radical change we will eventually hit a present Netherlands situation, a small country still producing talent but things aren't just working.
In fact I think we are a good parallel to Netherlands in general.

BTW did you see Proença (president of the Portuguese League) saying he is working on the Iberian League?
http://www.record.pt/multimedia/detalhe/liga-iberica-vai-mesmo-avancar.html
I find it very weird that in such an important thing the clubs don't seem to have been heard or talked to?
 
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Lacking contol of the game is always a problem for Jorge Jesus teams, also Jonathan Silva being worse than Zeegellar didn't help. First time in my life I watched a portuguese team playing in Greece finishing the first half where they could have won 5:0 imho.

You can copy paste this to Sergio Conceição also, I think yesterday was the last match in the Champions League where Porto will play with 2 on central midfield. Must say even being rival clubs I don't like to see Benfica or Porto losing at home with CSKA or Besiktas. As I said a lot of times here, since 2010 the level of our league is fallind down imo.

Not directly related to Jorge Simão, but when I mentioned Mou, Jardim, Fonseca, Conceição or Vitória on the first line of portuguese managers, maybe the last 2 should be moved to the second lines.

Imho Paulo Fonseca is way above Conceição or Vitória after watching Shaktar vs Napoli, would be interesting to see Fonseca replacing JJ at the end of this season :lol:.

Keep going with your posts on the best portuguese football thread ever. :cool:

Jonathan Silva is the living proof that afterall the football analysts know more than we give them credit. Argentina league is in a downward spiral non-stop. The league become so poor in quality terms that basically almost any top midtable club can go for the title. You may think is more competitive, but trust, has nothing to do with it.

I told you so about Conceição. His previous jobs were not that impressive. His best job was at Académica, where he put them playing decent footy and made a very confortable season.

Paulo Fonseca won't have much success at Portugal, because he is not a leader in "military" style. Unfortunately our society mainly accepts authoritarian leaders, which is something stupid, but things are slowly changing in that field.
We (in Portugal) are not ready yet for a leadership like Fonseca, who is a very modern and human approach. I think he would be a fantastic choice for Bayern, because german society prefers that kind of leadeship, and plus, his teams play very good football. They were eliminated by Celta last season mainlu du to terrible referee decisions in both legs.

Braga was a good surprise. They won it fair and square, and this victory just saved Abel's job, who I suspect it would be sacked if defeated in this game.
 
Yes the level of our league is relatively falling down but I don't think there's anything we can do about that right now.

France, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, at least these soon or later (France and Russia already are, and domestic-league-wise France has been better for a long time now) will surpass us in european performances (historically it will still take a while, and as it is more long term it's not certain too because something good may happen to us, it's more unpredictable).
All the football money we have is syphoned into just 3 clubs, and still those can't compete finantially with the big clubs of these countries.
The power of these leagues' "minnows" are also incredibly stronger than those of our league.

If there is no radical change we will eventually hit a present Netherlands situation, a small country still producing talent but things aren't just working.
In fact I think we are a good parallel to Netherlands in general.

BTW did you see Proença (president of the Portuguese League) saying he is working on the Iberian League?
http://www.record.pt/multimedia/detalhe/liga-iberica-vai-mesmo-avancar.html
I find it very weird that in such an important thing the clubs don't seem to have been heard or talked to?

Ukranian league is a financial mess. Clubs are bankrupting as we speak. Even Dinamo Kiev is having finantial problems. There are teams that could hardly assemble a functional squad in the Ukranian Premier Division.

About Turkey, it will probably be a matter of time. They are getting richer and that reflects in their investment, either on football and on basketball. France will get ahead because suddenly you have PSG, Monaco, Lille and Marseille who got bought by tycoons and they will start to splash the cash. More tycoons will follow. France is also a very interesting place for major investments and that is appealing for rich guys who want to play FM in the real world.

Our main problem is as you addressed: our main clubs get a lot of money from transfers, but a moajor part of that money gets absorbed into some kind of ponzi scheme strategy, where dozens of indirect persons/companies get money from those transfers.

I think we wont get to dutch level, because of desenrascanço à la tuga :D

The iberian league would be a great step ahead, imho. Both Portugal and Spain are shaing the same difficulties: top clubs getting money and small clubs getting bankrupted every year. It would be a step ahead and would be good for everyone. Plus, you could have a 20/22 Premioer League with a very competitive level.

Off course Real and Barça would easily dominate, but from the finantial point of view would be a tremendous success for our clubs. But the problem would be our clubs. They are too narrow minded and are afraid to loose power if the iberian league goes forward.
 
I may have gotten it wrong, but I don't think the Iberian League talks are for a real league, more like a glorified friendly tournament among the top teams to be played in breaks or at the end of the season.
 
I may have gotten it wrong, but I don't think the Iberian League talks are for a real league, more like a glorified friendly tournament among the top teams to be played in breaks or at the end of the season.

No, the quadrangular tournament is a different thing, this one is supposed to possibly happen in the end of this season, while the Iberian League is a project Proença hopes will be established before his term ends (2019).
I think maybe La Liga is already having a backup plan in case of Catalan independence, while the portuguese league wants the moneys.
Now for what the clubs think, the small ones will absolutely love the moneys, even if their no-fans problems will make them crumble to the lower divisions compared to similar sized spanish clubs.
Porto/Benfica/Sporting, about these I'm curious if they will be able to be kinda like in a tier below Barça/Real but above Atlético/Valencia/Sevilla, or will be "full integrated" in this second group. For these the move isn't clearly obvious.
 
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Yes the level of our league is relatively falling down but I don't think there's anything we can do about that right now.

Collective tv rights deal, like everyone else does, would be a great first step.
 
Collective tv rights deal, like everyone else does, would be a great first step.

That would be a good step, but nowhere near enough to "stop" the turkish/russian leagues for example to compete strongly with us.
Also Ukraine is a special case because the country is in the middle of a war, it's normal that clubs suffer a bit from that.
 
That would be a good step, but nowhere near enough to "stop" the turkish/russian leagues for example to compete strongly with us.
Also Ukraine is a special case because the country is in the middle of a war, it's normal that clubs suffer a bit from that.

Yeah but we have to be realistic about our financial power. Those countries' top clubs often have sugar daddies, we don't.

And that's fine by me, I would much rather have a decent league, with more even sides and interesting games every weekend, than 3 or 4 clubs half-competitive in Europe at the expense of the other 14 clubs, who get crums and go into debt just to have a functional squad.
 
No, the quadrangular tournament is a different thing, this one is supposed to possibly happen in the end of this season, while the Iberian League is a project Proença hopes will be established before his term ends (2019).
I think maybe La Liga is already having a backup plan in case of Catalan independence, while the portuguese league wants the moneys.
Now for what the clubs think, the small ones will absolutely love the moneys, even if their no-fans problems will make them crumble to the lower divisions compared to similar sized spanish clubs.
Porto/Benfica/Sporting, about these I'm curious if they will be able to be kinda like in a tier below Barça/Real but above Atlético/Valencia/Sevilla, or will be "full integrated" in this second group. For these the move isn't clearly obvious.

I love the idea (anything that shakes the competitive structure of our/European football), but it seems a bit far fetched, if you mean a "new" Iberian League at the expense of the Portuguese and Spanish Leagues... What would UEFA's take be on it?

The news in the last two days have been remarkably short on details. All I've read from Proença is overly simplistic and it's as if this is just a decision from him and his counterpart in the LFP.
 
Cristiano in Alvalade watching the game :drool:

It's a shame he can't get on the field and give us a little help. That was a bad first half from us, we're lucky Mathieu scored that beauty. Alan Ruiz is not good enough to even be in our bench, I have no idea why he's starting. Acuña and Iuri haven't been great either, something needs to change for the second half and we need to get a second goal since I have no trust in us keeping a 1 goal lead.