 Have Portugal finally found the world-class striker they crave?
“Nelson Oliveira can be as good as he wants to be”
 Despite producing an astonishing number of the world’s finest wingers over a number of years, Portuguese football has been far less blessed in terms of churning out top quality strikers. Many believe exciting Benfica starlet Nelson Oliveira is set to buck that trend.
One person who knows Oliveira better than most is Irish striker Padraig Amond, who was his team-mate for a year at Pacos de Ferreira last season. Speaking exclusively to PortuGOAL, Amond gives us his opinion on Oliveira’s potential, as well as his thoughts about his time in Portugal.
Padraig Amond on Nelson Oliveira
PortuGOAL: Are you surprised at the impact Nelson Oliveira is making at Benfica and his call-up to the Portuguese national team?
Padraig Amond: I’m not surprised Nelson has made an impact at Benfica but I am a little surprised how quick he has made it. You could always tell in training that he had a lot of ability and great attributes and obviously training every day at Benfica has helped him and he has worked very hard since he has gone back there.
As regards Portugal the same again; it was just how quick he has got the call up that surprised me but I am delighted for him that he is doing so well. In the summer I watched most of the Portugal U20 games in the World Cup and he was fantastic in them so he is only going to get better and being in the senior squad now will benefit him in the long term.
PortuGOAL: What are his main attributes?
Padraig Amond: His main attributes would be his speed, his strength and his finishing. He is lightning quick over 20 yards and once he gets the experience from playing in the first team at Benfica he is only going to get better and better.
PortuGOAL: Most people in Portugal are hoping he becomes a top central striker, something the national team has been in need of for a long time, but he has often played out wide. What was his position at Pacos and where do you think he is most effective?
Padraig Amond: He played in both striker positions and on the wing too at Pacos but I think his best one is down the middle. His speed and strength enable him to fight the centre-backs in the air and get away from them with ease and then his ability with the ball makes it easy for him to drop deep to receive the ball from midfield too to run at defenders and get his shots off.
PortuGOAL: In terms of his general attitude in training and on the pitch, how would you describe Oliveira?
Padraig Amond: In training he can be laid back but not in a bad way. When we played games and did training drills he was always doing them at match pace at 100 mph. He was a fantastic trainer, but sometimes he became frustrated and I think that’s because he knows he was highly rated and has lots of ability and just wanted to be the best he could be. When he played in games he was always good; he was just unfortunate that Mario Rondon was doing as good as he was for us.
PortuGOAL: On a personal level, what are your impressions of Oliveira as a person and as a team-mate?
Padraig Amond: Obviously it was hard for me with not having great Portuguese and his English wasn’t great but when we had little conversations he was a lovely person. We used to stay behind and have competitions in finishing after training and we tried to help each other as much as we could so he was very good in that regard. He would always make sure he said hello and every now and again he will send me a Facebook message or vice-versa to see how each other are.
PortuGOAL: What do you predict for the future career of Nelson Oliveira?
Padraig Amond: Nelson Oliveria can be as good as he wants to be for both Benfica and Portugal. He has so much ability it is frightening and I could only wish to have some of his attributes. I don’t want to predict anything for him because he has lots of pressure and hopes on his shoulders but I hope he goes on to have a fantastic career for both teams (except at Euro 2012 if Portugal play Ireland ha ha!).
Padraig Amond on Padraig Amond
 PortuGOAL: Irish footballers in Portugal are practically unheard of. It was a courageous decision to move here, especially when so young. Looking back on your year in Portugal, how would you assess your time at Pacos? What were the highlights?Padraig Amond: I loved my time in Portugal. It was a great chance I got to go and play there and I will always be grateful to Carlos Carneiro and Rui Vitoria for giving me the chance to play there. My year in Pacos was great and a little frustrating too. I thought I should have played more games as I did well when I played but it was a massive step up from the Irish league.
My favourite highlights were my debut versus Braga, scoring my first goal against Leixoes and the cup final against Benfica. In fact every game to me was a highlight. I was so honoured to play in the league and against some massive teams and get results against the likes of Sporting Lisbon, Braga and Porto too.
PortuGOAL: What benefits do you think your experience in Portugal brought to your game?
Padraig Amond: Playing in Portugal improved me a lot technically. I never had top coaching when I was growing up so I relished and loved going to training everyday to improve myself and training with great players like Pizzi, David Simao and Nelson Oliveria really helped me.
PortuGOAL: Do you keep track of Portuguese football?
Padraig Amond: Yeah I try watch all the Pacos games when I can on the internet and I speak to the secretary Paulo Goncalves after most games to see how the players are doing and the team too.
PortuGOAL: After the frustration of seeing little playing time last season, you must be pleased to be playing and scoring regularly at Accrington Stanley. Tell us how 2011/12 has gone for you so far.
Padraig Amond: Yeah, it’s great to be back playing every week now and I am delighted to be scoring goals too. I have played most of the season on the left and right wing and it’s only in the last 4-5 games I have played as a striker and I am loving it here. Scoring goals is the best thing in the works and I’m hoping to score more before the season is over.
PortuGOAL: You are still contracted to Pacos. Would you like to play in the Liga ZON Sagres again or do you think your future lies elsewhere?
Padraig Amond: I would love to play in the league again but I don’t know what’s going to happen as regards next year. I am just concentrating on doing well for Accrington until the end of the season and doing the best I can while still hoping Pacos keep winning games too.
by Tom Kundert
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In my opinion, Oliveira needs to see the field at least a little bit, but acting like he's going to be the guy to score in every game during his very first senior tournament is a little much. He isn't Ronaldo, no matter how much people want him to be. I think he's very good, but at this point he's still struggling to get playing time with his club and that means he's going to remain unpolished. His decision making is going to suffer because of that (much like Ronaldo in his earlier years).
Even so, based upon what I saw at the under 20 WC, I think he's probably a better finisher than Almeida and maybe Postiga too. He's strong like Almeida but he has better speed, so I think it's all down to how well he can finish.
In the end, you want substitutes to possess a different dimension than the starter that they are replacing, as opposed to just being a less skilled version of the current starter. I think Oliviera has that.....maybe he wouldn't be as valuable in the build-up play (which we don't need as much anyway) but maybe he could finish better. At the very least, his inclusion in the tournament means Portugal would have 3 different options at striker and that's good because we'll need them.
Mark my words, at some point in this tournament, somebody other than Cristiano Ronaldo is going to have to take a game by the throat. I'm not saying that Portugal's hopes live and die purely based on how our strikers perform (I think it depends more on how our midfield/defense performs), but we face some defensively stout teams and we're going to need better from our striker corps than we've been getting....and that's just to get out of our group!
Look CR7 left when to manu and learned to stay on his feet. His first season he was a big flopper.
Looking nothing against the kid but I honestly don't see much. Now if Rodrigo was portuguese I'd be praising that kid.
Portugal is known for great wingers yet managers continually put mids, even attacking ones, and now strikers out wide.
Its baffling how they weaken two positions with one move.
As for Nelson he's clearly going to be fine. The experience will come and he'll get even better.
Everyone just needs to relax and let him be.
As a striker/goal scorer I like to see a bit of selfishness, but he's missed several open teammates for open tap ins.
Regards to starting, i agree postiga should start until oliveira gets some more match time in him then he should take over. BUT anyone see a problem with this? Bento doesnt trust him...as we saw in our last match he played him as a winger at the end with no one giving him the ball may i add lol...
Raw talent or w.e excuse you guys are going to come up with, the earlier the better, Ronaldo also went young with talent to man utd and look what happened...
Pressure will either motivate or destroy a player, but for Nelson...im gonna go with the first one
Also it's nice to see more sporting and porto friends support him and acknowledging that he is benfica's jewel and Portugals future!