The European/World Football Thread III

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There we go... 5 games in and a two point lead at the top for Benfica. Still early days but with us playing Sporting in the next round of games I feel this gap will be greater come this time next week.

Poor game vs Boavista. People can blame the weather / pitch and being down to ten men but the real reason we lost was because we didn’t create enough chances. With regards to the pitch it was only that chance where the ball would have gone straight through to Brahimi (and more than likely would have been a goal as it was heading straight to him) that the pitch caused a problem... the rest of the time the pitch was fine.

We just didn’t create enough chances and our set-pieces were poor. Boavista really frustrated us and then in the few chances we did create Mika pulled off a couple of good saves. That’s two games for Mika and two clean sheets. Putting this result aside I’m actually happy to see Mika getting an opportunity in this league. I think it was back in 2011 when you and I were pretty impressed with him as he had a very good tournament in the U20s for Portugal, then he signed with you but he only featured in the B-team. That was actually the last I heard of him until I read in the summer that he had signed for Boavista after leaving a team a few divisions below, so I didn’t actually realise he had left Benfica. So for him to be getting his chance and keeping two clean sheets in a team that previously conceded 7 goals in their first two games with Monllor in goal looks really good for him. Hopefully for him his career will begin to go forward as he did look like a good keeper previously and then tonight he was there again with his good saves.

A poor 45 minutes in the first half for Benfica but JJ must have said something to them at HT as they came out and put in a really good performance in the second half. Eliseu with a beautiful goal to get the scoring going. You did think after Moreirense went down to ten men that they would struggle to hold on though. I didn’t watch the Sporting match but I’ve seen the highlights and Sporting got what they deserved out of the match. A good win, which was much needed for them! The first two goals were pretty nice by Adrien and Nani too.

Quick word about the Champions League, I really did expect us to lose to be honest. Zenit proved they are much better than us, and that sending off didn't help matters.

Porto were amazing though.. Brahimi is ridiculous!

Expected Sporting to win.. that last second equaliser was really disappointing.



Anyway, moving on.. wow, I did not expect Benfica to become the isolated league leaders so early! We haven't exactly been convincing so far, but we've already faced some tough tests like Boavista away and Sporting at home. Porto have surprised me in a bad way.. maybe Lopetegui is making too many changes to the team every match, so there is no consistency? The squad is clearly far superior to every other one, so it doesn't look very good.

Moreirense caused a lot of problems to us, but thankfully Eliseu made up for his defensive mistake by getting us another important goal (What a goal btw!), and Maxi completed the comeback. It's nice to have a goal threat from so deep!

Boavista proved that their performance against Benfica wasn't a fluke by getting a draw at the Dragao! They might end up not having such a bad season after all. RE: Mika, yeh, I had completely forgotten that he had gone to Boavista until I saw him playing for them last night.. like you said, I also hope he gets his career back on track because he was definitely impressive back in 2011!

Sporting did well to finally get back to winning ways. 4-0 is just what they needed too.


Looking forward to next weekend too. Sporting-Porto will be excellent.. hopefully ends in a draw! :P

Estoril will be a tough test for Benfica too..

This match should be abandoned. The pitch is like a swamp.

Not sure if football or waterpolo tbh. If it was any other match it would be called off. Just because it's a derby...

Entertaining watch though. Gol Boca 1-0.

Apparently, this channel is run by the Argentine government so everyone in the country can watch all the league football, every match is shown on it. It is called 'Futbol Para Todos'; (football for all) and is on the terrestrial TV over there as well so even the poorest people (as long as they have a telly) can watch it.

Fair ****ing play to them. I might pick an Argentine side to follow and pay this league more attention.

Just looked up there that River Plate are top and Boca are down in 13th so ATM the score is suprising.

Would love to go to this game once. No doubt it would it probably be incredible. If a lot of these games are free to watch as you say i might check out a few games throughout the season.

I have an affection for Velez Sarsfield mainly due to football manager so i'd like to see them do well this season.

Yeah the ground looks fantastic with all the flags. I swear I was reading about the 'Superclasico' a while back, people have been shot at the games

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Thanks ra. Why do you prefer the Brazilian league over the Argentine one?

Was a decent watch but the match really should have been abandoned, it was farcical at times. Do you know when the away fans will be allowed back into the grounds?

If I'd have known all these matches were on YouTube and free I'd have probably watched them sooner.

Indian Super League starting tomorrow. Should be jokes

Don't know if Euro 2016 qualifiers belong here, but as it stands, four of the five British countries top a qualifying group after 2 games (the only one not to being Scotland)

Quite a bit has gone on since I last replied to you.

Firstly the league...

We need to win this weekend, three draws in a row is not good enough and if we draw again then it will be bad as I think we can safely say you will not drop points against Arouca. I think you’ve completely nailed it about Porto, we’re changing our team around too much making it a lot more difficult for us to actually gel together as a team. As good as it is to have such depth in the squad Lopetegui changing it every single game is beginning to become frustrating. I expected the changes a bit later on in the season when they become a bit more fatigued and when we start introducing the Taça matches, right now I don’t understand the need to change it this much.

If we do draw this weekend and you lot win you will have a 6 point advantage over us... ALREADY!! Crazy but I’m expecting this to be the outcome come 8pm tomorrow night. It’s crazy as this is probably one of the strongest sides we’ve had in a while so we should be performing better than this.

Another 4-0 for Sporting tonight, it actually looked like they were never going to score but once the first goal went in that was it and they scored the other three. Another goal for Nani and finally a goal for Fredy Montero. The commentator said his last league goal was in December? I didn’t think it was that long since he last scored a league goal! He needed that!

As for the Champions League, I didn’t watch the Benfica match but pretty frustrating that you managed to get back into it only to concede the penalty so soon after it for Leverkusen to make it 3-1. From the highlights that match could have been a lot worse for you lot, but it’s not looking great with two defeats already. Definitely need to pick up a win against Monaco in the next CL match, ideally two wins against them in these next two matches but a win and a draw would help you out, can’t afford to lose another.

I didn’t expect Sporting to win or get anything out of the match vs Chelsea but the score line was certainly closer than I expected it to be. It sounded like Rui played a blinder too. Trust it to be Matic to score the goal against them though.

I can’t believe Porto! Again, I think this was the consequence of Lopetegui changing the team and making Jackson sit on the bench. We should have gone into half time with a lead, to then find ourselves 2-0 down in the second half was annoying... I actually didn’t see any way back for us, so I was pretty surprised that we scored those two late goals.

A very good win for Estoril to beat Panathinaikos 2-0, made up for them to get a Europa League win but such a shame for Rio Ave to lose out with such a narrow defeat. Hopefully they will pick up their first win in the competition soon, or even just a point would be something great for them!

Now for the national team...

What do you think about Fernando Santos? I find it pretty bizarre that we’ve picked a person who can’t even be like a proper manager due to his touchline ban. I know he can do the rest of the managerial role with picking the teams and tactics etc, but not having the managers presence on the side of the pitch can be a huge impact. I just think it’s a bit of a strange person for the job at the moment considering he has this 8 match touchline ban. However, I’m just glad to see the back of Bento and seeing Jose Fonte called up over Ricardo Costa is a great relief. He deserves that call up and I’m very happy he has finally got it. I’m happy with João Mário, Cédric and Adrien being included too. I do find the call up of Ricardo Carvalho an unexpected one, quite odd to see Tiago recalled as too Danny. As for Quaresma being recalled... He's baaaack.