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| Thursday, 20 January 2011 23:16 |
Crisis? What crisis?Sporting 4-0 Penafiel Sporting bounced back from a traumatic week to hammer Penafiel 4-0 and all but book their place in the semi-finals of the Bwin Cup. Goals from Joao Pereira, Jaime Valdes (penalty) and a brace from Zapater put the smile back on the faces of the Lisbon club’s fans.
In the wake of Saturday’s home defeat by Pacos de Ferreira, followed by the dramatic resignation of President Jose Eduardo Bettencourt and growing contestation of coach Paulo Sergio, Sporting showed their mettle by doing a thoroughly professional job on Liga Orangina side Penafiel at the Alvalade tonight.
The second-tier side began well, trying to take advantage of nerves among the home players and the sparse crowd, but suffered a setback early on as goalkeeper Willian injured himself taking a goal kick.
His replacement between the sticks Marcio Ramos ended up having a big influence on the match. As the interval approached the keeper was careless in trying to pass to a team-mate and Liedson was onto the ball in flash, squaring for Joao Pereira to knock into the empty net.
Liedson was also at the heart of Sporting’s second in the 71st minute, winning a penalty. Chilean midfielder Valdes stepped up and did the honours.
Zapater stunner
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I don't know if Bettencourt had his hands on this, but it might be the only good thing he did for the club.
I saw that Diogo Matos, director of the Academy Projects (?) might have been the driving force behind it.
As for Benfica's financial crisis, it's a mute point. We tried to sell Cardozo over teh summer because we thought we would have been able to cash in on him and replacements were in place.
We will cash in on Luis, Coentrao and even maybe Aimar (to Brazil).
As for Salvio, he's been just ok. Maybe it's because Martin's still starts, but we haven't seen him that much. There isn't a need to overpay, especially if Porto is interested. I really don't care, but if we think he's a starter, lets get him and sit Martins.
It's the Portuguese way of surviving, just take a look at Porto.
I would also like to mention the rumor in England that Luis would go to Chelsea and we would get back money and Kalou. Although that would negate the need to sign Salvio, I'm afraid of Kalou sulking. That would mean injury and him sitting.
Let me also add that one of the reasons Braga has profited this season is because they didn't upgrade their squad eventhough they had Champions League money available. If anything they sold players and cashed in even more.
I know that they're still not in the position to spend like the big teams, but it would have been nice to see some drive to improve. We just didn't get that.
As for the number of spectators, the site I check has slightly diferent numbers.
Benfica still leads in attendance with 306,208 and Porto only has 297,622. Interesting.
The site I go to is a German site that logs all sort of stats on European leagues.
http://www.lpfp.pt/futebol/pages/espectadores.aspx
Like I said previously, Braga needs to go through an adjustment but they will stabilize. When they stabilize we'll see.
Benfica has a financial crisis and Jorge Jesus even admitted that they can't buy Salvio. 400 million euros in debt and growing each month due to high salaries and decreasing home attendances.
I want to see what will happen to Benfica when they sell Luiz, Coentrao, and Cardozo. They will have to because of the "financial crisis". Moreover, you can bet Benfica will have to readjust like Braga did this year. Problem is when Benfica is adjusting Braga will be stable. Cheers.
Money doesn't grow on trees like some Benfica fans think it does.
I would be more interested in Braga’s financial worries. It seems they just recently gutted their squad because of the salary demands. It also seems all the bandwagon fans are jumping off since they can’t seem to sell many tickets when compared to last year. Given their table standings, I’m guessing Braga is going back to being another average club. Kind of sad since I was hoping we would get a few more contenders for titles in this league.
The Quote of the Day on the site by Joan Perreira is ridiculous. If I was a Sporting fan, I would very much hope that the resignation of the president would effect the players.
Let's face it, poor decisions have been made on and off the field, but the players themselves haven't helped themselves either. "This Group" as he put it, better get in gear, or it won't matter who comes in.
For all their failures, the "Maca Podres" should find themselves lucky that Braga's foray into European football has hampered their domestic campaign. Guimaraes has also disapointed so far.
I may hate the "Maca Podres", but I also realize their importance to Portuguese football, so I forever wish 3rd place for them. Ok, 4th would be ok as well.
Sporting will come back we are only 8 point behind
i wouldn't say their out of a crisis though..2 goals were practically given, 2nd division team.
Sporting deserved the win, but the crisis continues!