Vitoria Setubal left to pick up the pieces
The great Vitoria Setubal experiment - Week 3
 In his latest instalment of Vitoria Setubal’s attempt to earn Liga Sagres survival with a brand new zero-cost squad, Antonio Fresco analyses the disastrous 8-1 hammering suffered by the Sadinos at the hands of Benfica.
A season is not lost in one game, but it sure can feel like it. An inexperienced Vitoria ended up on the wrong end of a blow-out against Benfica to the tune of 8-1. The young Sadinos almost seemed shell-shocked right from the get go. For many of Vitoria’s players, the Estadio da Luz was the biggest stage they had ever played on.
The opening seconds of the game saw Benfica and Vitoria trade a couple of great offensive situations. Vitoria did assume a more defensive position but seemed to be in some sort of control. A 16th minute goal by Javi Garcia quickly tore the wheels off the Vitoria train and the onslaught didn’t end there.
Media bias
Before I go on with the rest of the article, I just want to say I usually avoid the Portuguese media when Vitoria plays any of the ‘Big 3’. This includes reading any of the ‘big three’ sports papers in Portugal (A Bola, O Jogo, and Record), due to the fact that each one supports a different ‘Big 3’ team. In this case, I avoided A Bola. I also like to avoid the radio broadcast as well. Listening live on tsf.pt as I watched it on RTP, the TSF broadcaster claimed that the first two Benfica goals came off set pieces that they practiced that very morning. I didn’t know TSF was hiring Benfica assistant coaches to do live commentary. Now back to the rest of the article.
It’s not all bad news for Vitoria. Over the past week, the Sadinos have acquired central defenders Zoro and Francois as well as left winger El Hadji Diouf on loan from AEK Athens. The acquisition of two central defenders will allow Sandro and Zarabi to assume their natural midfield roles. Combine that with a week off due to the national team in action, and this may just give Vitoria the break they need to regroup as a team.
It is only the 3rd game of the season so I’m not ready to throw Azenha under the bus just yet. If Azenha, from here on out, can prove that this was just a fluke game by stringing together some good results then we can all chalk this up to playing Benfica at the wrong time of the season. But the excuse of, “the team is not complete yet” cannot be used any longer.
Experiment Success Rating so far: 5/10
by Antonio Fresco
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Viva Setubal!