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| Sunday, 22 January 2012 16:21 |
Belenenses come out on top in the “other” Lisbon derbyAtletico’s promotion challenge suffers a blow A crisp sunny winter afternoon in the ramshackle Reboleira stadium in front of an enthusiastic crowd was the setting for an erstwhile “classic” of Portuguese football on Saturday afternoon. Half a century ago the Atletico Clube de Portugal versus Belenenses fixture would have attracted around 40,000 spectators.
There were less than 5% of that number yesterday in Amadora, but plenty of passion on show in the stands and on the pitch. Both clubs have fallen on hard times since their glory days, with Atletico forced to up sticks and play in a borrowed stadium given the lack of funds to maintain their wonderful Tapadinha home. That has not stopped them making a big impact in the Liga Orangina (Portugal’s second tier) however, after promotion from the regional leagues last season. A superb start to the season saw Atletico top of the standings to raise hopes of promotion back into the big time, but an indifferent run of form has seen them slip out of the promotion places. A win against Belenenses, who started the afternoon in penultimate place in the table, would have seen Atletico go back to the summit. But Belenenses, one of only two clubs outside the traditional big three to lift the Portuguese championship, also feel their rightful place is in the upper echelons of the league pyramid, and the large travelling contingent who gave their team tremendous vocal support yesterday further backed up the feeling the club has conditions to recapture at least a degree of its aura of happier times, if they can somehow find a way round their crippling financial woes. PassionThe match itself did justice to the occasion. As Belenenses coach Jose Mota noted after the game: “I miss matches like this. It had passion, a good turnout, controversy, goals…”Indeed, an exciting spectacle was a great advert for lower league Portuguese football. The first half hour especially was replete with the sort of full-bloodied crunching tackles you would expect any local derby worth its salt to contain, but also some fast and slick passing moves, with Atletico’s Helio Vaz and Belenenses’ Miguel Rosa especially catching the eye. Rafael Santos saw an early effort crash back off the bar for the visitors, but Atletico had the better of the rest of the first half, with the hosts causing Belenenses problems from set pieces particularly, with Joao Meira twice coming inches away from breaking the deadlock. Just after the hour mark Belenenses’ Miguel Rosa missed the best chance of the match up until then, as he headed over from five yards out. ControversyThe breakthrough came shortly afterwards but the goal was laced with controversy. Waldir’s cross-field pass aimed at Rosa was cut out by a desperate lunge from defender Luis Dias. His interception wrong-footed Atletico goalkeeper Caleb and agonisingly rolled into the net. Atletico’s players were furious that the goal was allowed to stand, and had a good case given that at the moment the pass was made the linesman raised his flag for offside, but the referee allowed play to continue.The goal knocked the stuffing out of Atletico, who ran out of attacking ideas, while Belenenses built on their advantage intelligently, taking advantage of Atletico’s need to commit more bodies forward to launch a series of dangerous counterattacks. The visitors doubled their lead and made sure of the points five minutes from time as Abel Camara latched onto a corner that was not dealt with to hammer into the net from close range. After the match Atletico’s Australian goalkeeper Caleb Patterson spoke exclusively to PortuGOAL about the match and where Atletico are at. PortuGOAL: What is your opinion on the opening goal?“I didn’t think our defender would reach the ball so I came out to close the angle because their player would have been one on one, and I don’t think Luis thought he would reach the ball, or if he did he would knock it out for a corner, but unfortunately he took a touch as I’m moving forward. It’s just one of those things where it’s fortunate for them - a bit unlucky for us.“I’m not making an excuse and I want to make sure that people know that, but the linesman did have his flag up. Whatever your interpretation of offside, if the guy is offside when the pass is made, he’s offside. It affected the play as I started moving out of the net, so he’s obviously involved. Luis has slid for the ball because he knows the guy is there, he’s obviously involved in the play, hence the linesman puts his flag up, then he puts it down. For me, that’s offside.” PortuGOAL: You started the season so well, top of the league after nine games, but Atletico have only won one of their last six matches. Can you explain what has caused that turnaround?“I think every team has their ups and down. Look at Estoril. They sacked their coach - now they’re top of the league. I wouldn’t say we’ve been so bad recently. We’ve had a few draws in there, we’ve conceded penalties and had some red cards in the games that we‘ve lost. You name it, we’ve had it. I’d like to think we’ll turn the corner sooner rather than later.“It’s not because we’re not working hard. If anything I think teams are paying us a bit more respect than at the start of the season when we were this unknown team that had come up and they thought we’d be easy meat early doors. Now teams know us, they know we’re a good side. “But at the same time we’ve got to defend well and we’ve got to be able to break teams down, like we did earlier in the season. We’re doing the same things that we were doing before, but I just think luck is going the wrong way at the moment, but if you continue to work hard you create your own luck. “If you look at the league from top to bottom it’s pretty close. If you’re at the top and you lose a few games and those around you start to win you can slide very quickly. If you’re at the bottom and you win like these guys (Belenenses) I’m not sure where they are but I guess they’ll be right up there in the middle of the table now. It’s a tough league. “Okay, so we’re having a little rough patch. I’d like to think we can now get back on the up and it’s at the right time of year for us to string some wins together in February, March and April. We’re only three points from Estoril, depending what they do tomorrow, if we go there and get a win (on Thursday) we’re right there.” By Tom Kundert |
Atletico had such a great start but man have they fallen off. Given that they just recently came back up to the second division, a good result would be maintaining that position. It’s still very possible to take a spot but they can’t be dropping too many more games.
As for Belenenses, that was a must win. It will be devastating if they drop down to the 3rd division, I think if they did drop it would be a matter of time before they lose their stadium and everything else of value. I really think clubs like Belenenses should be in the first division and with proper management and a bit of luck they could start drawing in some bigger crowds.
As always thanks for writing articles on the second division. It should get even more interesting next year if everything goes well with the new B teams. I think that will bring out bigger crowds to the games and extra cash to these teams.
I've stated before how I always try to catch a local match when in Portugal. That for me was always Belenenses, but now I can't to go to the Tapadinha. Let's hope its up to specs for next season, no matter where they play.