Faster than a Lopes own goal, more spectacular than a Ricardo Esteves left footed screamer, bigger than Chalana’s moustache and with jokes slower than a Maxi Pereira dribble, footballportugal Podcast returns once more with all the latest Portuguese football (or soccer) news in English.
Part 1 concentrates on all the weekend’s action and the stories surrounding it. Guimarães are the Goldilocks to Benfica’s three bears, as Manuel Cajuda’s side sleep temporarily in Benfica’s second place bed after beating Leiria 0-1 thanks to a Ghilas goal. Academica and Belenenses play a 0-0 bore draw but we talk about the various Belenenses players arranging flights to pastures new in the next season. Leixões are unlucky to be beaten at home 1-2 by Porto in a bad tempered game and Boavista go from strength to strength with a 2-1 victory over Estrela de Amadora, assisted in no small part by the referee. We also give the latest news on the problems with the payments of the Amadora players, who may go on strike this week if their payments are delayed once again. The suprise of the week was Paços de Ferreira’s 2-1 victory over Setúbal, watched by Porto President Pinto da Costa, taking an interest in his on-loan playmaker Cláudio Pitbull. Braga’s revival continues, the beat Naval 3-0 and Benfica’s poor form carries on, with a lackluster 1-1 draw at Marítimo. We also give our inside tip on Sebastião Lazaroni possibly being one of the leaders in the race for the Benfica hot seat.
Part 2 picks through the bones of Benfica’s UEFA cup failure and most importantly Makakula’s unbelievable 4th minute open goal miss. Sporting were in far better form, going through to the quarter finals to face Rangers with a 1-0 win against Bolton courtesy of an impressive display by Bruno Pereirinha. There is an interesting historical fact about a previous Sporting European fixture against Rangers and with Sporting doing well in all cup competitions at the moment (they play in the final of the Carlsberg Cup this weekend agains Setúbal), we look into the idea of whether Paulo Bento is the new Rafa Benitiez?
Finally, in part 3 focusses on the various sports newspapers and magazines available in Portugal and their affiliations with the various Portuguese clubs.
Because there are no fixtures this weekend other than the Carlsberg Cup final, we are going to postpone the next podcast until next Wednesday 27th March, which is the day after Portugal’s game to Greece in Germany. With nothing at stake, not even pride, surely Scolari can finally direct the selecção to victory over the old enemy, or maybe not…
Thanks for all the comments and e-mails, keep them coming, either here on the site or directly to our e-mail address info@footballportugalpodcast.com .
Thank you for listening.
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This podcast has now been removed
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