The European/World Football Thread III

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OMG We actually won! Didn't expect this tbh.. I can't even remember the last time we beat Porto.. maybe that match when we won the title and Saviola got the goal...

I missed the first 10-ish minutes, and then I missed the first goal as well because my stream was being dodgy, but it was a decent match. I was quite surprised we were starting with two strikers, but we were just counter-attacking so it made sense to have that setup with two fast strikers.

Porto had possession for long periods of the game but didn't do much. Can't remember Oblak having to make any amazing saves (also, Oblak has been so good. Really glad he started today instead of Artur).

The ref had a shocking game. Penalties not given for both sides, Danilo wrongly sent off, Jackson should have been sent off, offsides not called and sometimes not giving advantage.

Anyway. I still think it was a deserved win.. we should have had another goal too, if Rodrigo hadn't missed that one-on-one.

Can't believe we're in first place now! It was only a short while ago that Porto were 5 points clear and it seemed like it was all over already.

Reply 821

xDave-

Berardi going ham against Milan. Milan are just so bad now. Amazed no ones trying to buy their few remaining good players. As for Berardi, won't be surprised if he sits on the bench at Juve all next season.

Reply 822

ra-ra-ra

Original post by aa22

I don’t even remember the last time you beat us in the league either.

We were awful, from kick off until full time we were second best throughout. Benfica really wanted it a lot more than we did. Every attack was fast and looked like Benfica would get something from it.

Like you, I missed the start and the goal as I wasn’t able to escape from work as early as I planned. Hopefully that’s the last time we have a 4pm KO for this game, I really don’t like it. I prefer the 8pm+ KO’s for this type of game.

Absolutely agree with you with everything about the referee. That decision at the end of the game when he pointed to the penalty spot for Benfica but decided on doing a drop ball situation on the edge of the box!? By then I didn’t really care as the game was over but it just summed up his pathetic refereeing performance.

You deserved that, we were poor. From Helton, to Otamendi to Lucho to Varela... just not good enough. And i knew that after a few great games Carlos Eduardo would be absolutely terrible in this game. His set pieces were awful. Sadly my scenario of Quaresma coming off the bench to score didn’t happen either. Just a bad day all round for Porto.

I still expect there to be more ups and downs to that top spot as Benfica can’t (or rather they can but don’t) play like that every week. They were just so fast, eager to get the ball back and looked great on every attack. If they could do that every week then I feel it would be difficult to grab that spot back off you. The Luz was bouncing which was actually great to see and I’ve seen clips of the Eusébio tribute at the start which was nice to see too. A nice personal touch with all the players having his name on their shirt too.

Anyway, well done. Completely deserved for you, but thank God it’s only January and not May. Still a while to go and still a lot more up and downs along the way no doubt!

Reply 823

Zerforax

Milan sack Massimiliano Allegri

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jan/13/milan-sack-massimiliano-allegri-coach

Reply 824

ZÃ¼rich

lol, saw the beginning of the Milan game out of the corner of my eye last night. Remember thinking at 2-0 that Milan might not be as bad as all that...****ing hell 4-3!

Never liked Milan really so :borat:

Reply 825

xDave-

Seedorf appointed as the new Milan manager. A bit suicidal if you ask me, he has no experience whatsoever so I'm not sure what they're basing the decision on. Being a legend at the club doesn't qualify you as a good manager. Then again, he can't do much worse than Allegri.

Reply 826

aa22

Original post by ra-ra-ra

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Yeh, I agree there will be more changes to the top spot as the season progresses. And now that it seems very likely we're gonna lose Matic, it's even more certain. Really annoying that now that we were starting to hit top gear, we lose one of our best players :/

There's even talk of Zenit making bids for Rodrigo and Garay. If we lose them as well, we can pretty much say goodbye to our title challenge for this season.

I hate the January window...

Also, awesome that Ronaldo won the award again.. really pleased for him

Reply 827

Thugnificent.

milan and inter have gone to ****

what happened

Reply 828

ra-ra-ra

Original post by aa22

All official, he has gone. Blow for Benfica, it'll be interesting to see how they get on in their next league match. Time for Fejsa to step up or more of a chance for Amorim? If only this happened before the Porto game as Matic was solid in that match. I wonder how often he will actually get a full game for Chelsea though. It'll be interesting to see if it ends up like City with Javi Garcia when it really hasn't turned out as well as it could have been. And yeah, ideally you want to hold onto them two now, especially as Rodrigo is in good form too.

Just waiting for someone from Porto to go. Talk of Defour leaving, but we can deal with that. I also see there has been talk of William Carvalho being wanted by a few clubs. He shouldn't leave Sporting just yet. Too soon for him.

Both successful in the TDL yesterday. I watched all of 6 minutes of our game! Missed the first half due to work, turned it on for the second half only for them to stop on the 51st minute, and rightly so as the pitch was terrible. After taking an age for them to decide whether to continue i turned it over after thinking i heard the commentator say the game had been abandoned (I'm pretty sure he did!!) only to find out this morning we had actually won 4-0! :facepalm:

And yeah, great for Ronaldo to win it. I'm doing my round up of the Portuguese football news and just came across this... http://www.maisfutebol.iol.pt/cristiano-ronaldo-graffiti-mrdheo-porto-bola-de-ouro/52d68691e4b00c48975e32dc.html A cracking effort.

Reply 829

Thugnificent.

oh my word. pogba this season

lawd

Reply 830

ra-ra-ra

Original post by aa22

As we were at the top with the big three winning. In the end it was no big contest for Benfica or Porto but Arouca put up a good fight against Sporting. The conditions weren’t great but I think it just added to the entertainment of the match. William Carvalho with that beautiful little chip, it would have made a lovely goal if it wasn’t for the post! But in the end Slimani managed to get them the winner and unfortunately the three points.

Quaresma has slotted right back into this Porto side, a bit like he’s continued where he left off which I didn’t expect to see so soon (or at all?!). Quaresma might have messed up his volley (even though it did get turned into a goal by Jackson) but Carlos Eduardo made no mistake with his stunning volley. I don’t know if that was the best volley scored this weekend, Bebe’s for Paços was equally as good. A decent point for them in the end against Braga, but Braga once again dropping points.

And Rodrigo continues to be on fire! Really hope he leaves. Soon. :wink:

Reply 831

aa22

Original post by ra-ra-ra

Yeh, everything stays the same this weekend. Thankfully :tongue:

I didn't get to watch any match on Sunday because I was out all day. Only saw the goals for the Benfica. I'm glad we've kept our winning run going. Rodrigo is still knocking them in, surprisingly... Can't really tell if he has actually found his old form again, or has just been getting lucky with his goals. He's getting close to that form though.

Never really had any doubt about quaresma.. Sounds like he hasn't had problems getting back into the team. He'll be first choice pretty easily I think considering Porto don't really have anything great on the wings.

I saw the Sporting match on Saturday though. The pitch definitely did not help either team and Sporting did well to come out of it with a win. That William Carvalho chip could've been a sweet goal.

Back to the taca da liga next weekend I think..

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Reply 832

Straight up G

Falcao's done his ACL, misses the world cup.

Reply 833

Aky786UK

^Bugger. I think he's captain of Columbia ain't he?

I think that game Monaco had was filled with strong challenges but might also delay any potential move away from France in the summer.

Reply 834

419

Most of you (most likely everyone) probably don't know that the African Nations Championship is going on at moment. Yes, they did have one last year :smug:

but this one is different :holmes:

The clue is in the name- it's the African Nations Champions this time; the one last year is the African Nations Cup. The difference is that only players based in African can take part in the Championship (hence why Yaya and Mikel aren't in continental Africa) making it probably the most priest competition in football.

Anyways, Nigeria played Morocco earlier today and staged a comeback that was just simply amazing- 3-0 at half time and managed to win 4-3. They scored 2 goals in the early part of the send half but Morocco got themselves back together and looked like it'd 3-2 until Nigeria scored the equaliser in injury time. Winner came in second half of ET.

Damn Stephen Keshi is really doing an amazing job. It was a really good match as well- high octane end to end stuff ala PL. Defensively both teams were found wanting- as the goal shows and neither knew how to deal with the long ball. But there was a high level of technical ability on display.

Reply 835

ra-ra-ra

Original post by aa22

Yeh, everything stays the same this weekend. Thankfully :tongue:

I leave the country for a few days only to come back home and see that Lucho has departed. :frown:

I can't quite believe it, the guy has left me completely devastated.

I've deiced that this is the last time i get a name on the back of my shirt too. I don't know whether it's some sort of coincidence but they all seem to leave within a few months of owning that shirt. Should have got Defour on the back in hope it would have been him leaving and not Lucho. :closedeyes:

Seems liked i missed a decent Taça da Liga weekend too. I'll catch up eventually, i decided to give up catching up on the news when i saw a picture of Lucho in his horrible red kit. I'll get over it eventually but for now the feeling the is raw.

Have i missed anything else? Rodrigo left yet? Or how about Garay? Oh how I hate the January transfer window as much as you do. :closedeyes:

Reply 836

ahq

Original post by ra-ra-ra

xxx

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/jan/29/jorge-cadete-portugal-celtic-state-benefits

Jorge Cadete. Pretty sad story.

Reply 837

Aky786UK

Original post by Abiraleft

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/jan/29/jorge-cadete-portugal-celtic-state-benefits

Jorge Cadete. Pretty sad story.

Man, I remember him playing for Celtic in the mid-90s. Bad times for him atm but guess it's part and parcel of sport where when you're at the top, you can't imagine life at the bottom until it happens.

Reply 838

ra-ra-ra

Original post by Abiraleft

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/jan/29/jorge-cadete-portugal-celtic-state-benefits

Jorge Cadete. Pretty sad story.

Very sad to see.

I remember this (you might have to skip to 8:00 in the video).

The first stage of the Copa Libertadores returned this week. :biggrin:

Not a great night for the two Brazilian teams as Botafogo and Atlético PR both saw defeats in their first legs. A very narrow margin for both to overcome in their second legs next week though, so every possibility they'll join the other four Brazilian clubs in the next stage.

Reply 839

aa22

Original post by ra-ra-ra

I leave the country for a few days only to come back home and see that Lucho has departed. :frown:

Yeh, it was quite a surprise to see Lucho leaving. Very sudden. But I'm not complaining! He was one of the better players that Porto had in that midfield. And now that both Benfica and Porto have lost an important midfielder, it kinda makes us even (even though I reckon it will be harder for us to replace Matic, than for Porto to replace Lucho).

At least you've got a shirt with the name of a club legend on it (if we can call him that by now..). I mean, no player is realistically going to stay at Porto for a long time (Portuguese squads are always changing), so buying a shirt with the name of any player is always likely to go out of date within a few years at the very most (unless you got Helton or someone on the back of your shirt). That said, nobody expected Lucho to leave Porto, so it makes sense that you'd buy a shirt with his name.

Taca da Liga-wise, pretty interesting stuff. Benfica played a whole load of Portuguese players and many academy players got their chance as well. We won 1-0 very comfortably.. Gil Vicente's attack was almost non-existant.

Andre Gomes had one of his best games in a long time (and it seems we have sold his monetary right for 15m to that Mendes fellow). Ivan Cavaleiro did pretty well too. I was glad to see Bernardo Silva get some 15 minutes at the end as well.. he replaced Djuricic (who didn't play very well) and added a lot of attacking threat, I really hope Bernardo gets more chances because he is by far the best youth product I've seen come through Benfica.

Joao Cancelo also made his debut and played quite well. I mean, he attacked well enough, don't know much about his defensive qualities because, like I said, Gil Vicente might as well not have turned up.

Porto got lucky to win their match against Maritimo. Pretty dire performance from Porto considering Maritimo had a bunch of B team players playing. It was only near the end that Porto suddenly started the engines and won the match with that penalty. Sporting weren't happy, obviously, but the penalty was probably the right decision..

And yeh, I hate the window just as much as you do. Thankfully no more sales have happened so far. But, that can still change. IIRC we lost David Luiz on the last day of the January window, so anything can still happen.

Ola John has left on loan to Germany... hopefully he plays out there, increases his value and then is sold on.. I've given up on him being useful for Benfica again.

Nothing on Rodrigo or Garay, fortunately. Djuricic's agent said Newcastle were interested. Dunno how real the interest is, but I'd prefer if we kept him, especially if the offer is just 10m like it was reported. We might also find out where Mendes is going to take Andre Gomes tomorrow.