Carlos Martins Interview

André

Ronaldinho

O nosso menino.



André

5 Years Ago

André

Paulo Bento Interview (From CM)

Paulo Bento Interview from April 1st 2006 Edition of Newspaper "Correio da Manhã".



André

Djaló Demolition Job.

Sporting's Starting XI

Benfica's Starting XI

Sporting's Finishing XI

1st Goal, 39th minute.
Scored by Yannick Djaló.
Assisted by Leandro Romagnoli.

2n Goal, 51st minute.
Scored by Yannick Djaló.
Assited by Liedson.

3rd Goal, 62nd minute.
Scored by Kostas Katsouranis.

Substitutions:

47th:
Rodrigo Tello replaces Ronny.
Abel replaces Miguel Garcia.

Paulo Bento switches from a Right Contention Full-back (Garcia) and Left-Ofensive Full-Back (Ronny) to an opposite version with a Left sided Contention Full-back (Tello) and a Right sided ofensive Full-Back (Abel) and thus forcing Fernando Santos to alter his pre-set markings.

58th:
Nani replaces Romagnoli.

64th
Carlos Paredes replaces Carlos Martins.

With this alteration the diamond switches from 3 creative elements (Romagnoli, Moutinho, Martins) and a contention unit (Custódio) to a diamond with 2 contention players in Custódio and Paredes and with the polyvalent Moutinho also closing out the right and all 3 giving Nani freedom to move forward.

73rd
Douala replaces Yannick Djaló.
Deivid replaces Liedson.

The entire forward line has been replaced in the same minute losing a bit of it's "identity" and forward pressure is now lowering it's output.

77th
João Alves replaces João Moutinho.

Moutinho gets replaced by an even more defensive minded player and with 13 minutes left to play Paulo Bento had a defensive trident with Custódio, Carlos Paredes and João Alves all providing a filtration zone which is winning balls very high up the pitch.

Paulo Bento rotated 7 of the 11 players and doesn't abdicate from it's 4 man spine of Tiago, Polga and Tonel and the Captain Custódio. The "strenght" and solidity of the Captain and the 2 Centre-Backs was felt tonght as thery provided sobriety and cool headedness all throughtout the revolving-door rotation aroudn them.

Sporting despite having started pre-season 20 days after Benfica did manage to look much fresher physically and a score of 5-0 would not have been unreasonable.

Good game, tactically Sporting was very disciplined, the Centre-Backs and the Captain were impeccable, Moutinho's flawless passing help build the game forward and Yannick Djaló is showing that he is indeed a player to keep an eye on.


André

Champion Again

34 Serie A Games (2431 minutes), started 28.
5 Goals, 9 Assists, 3 Yellow Cards

August 20th 2005 wins Italian Supercup.
May 11th 2006 wins Italian Cup.
July 26th 2006 wins Serie A Title.

3 titles in 11 months.

On April 22nd when Inter beat Reggina 4-0 Figo made 3 assists

Parabêns, Campeão.



André

Adriaanse Interview ("O Jogo") Part 2

2nd and final part of Co Adriaanse's May 22nd interview with Sports Newspaper "O Jogo".



André

Adriaanse Interview ("O Jogo") Part 1

Excellent Interview from the May 22nd Edition of "O Jogo" with Co Adriaanse in which he discusses a multitude of aspects in this very wide ranging discussion about Football and Footballers, best interview I've read all year.


André

Only 3 Goals?

Co Adriaanse: "Benny McCarthy is very good but he only scored 3 goals".

For the sake of accuracy McCarthy in 2005/06 scored 3 goals in League Games, 2 in Portuguese Cup Games, 1 in European Games for a total of 6 goals.

I'm curious, will Mister Adriaanse ever take blame or at least shoulder a portion of the blame when something doesn't go right or is the "guilt" something that only the players must bare?

"Hélder Postiga was lazy in training"

"Anderson thought he was already the best player in the world"

"McCarthy only scored 3 goals"

"Diego didn't defend or score goals"

Well, can I please add something myself? How about:

"Co Adriaanse can't work with players to adapt them to his system and has no patience with players who aren't ready to fit in"

McCarthy only scored 3 goals?

Well, Benny McCarthy didn't have any problems scoring 16 goals in 2004/05 with José Couceiro or Victor Fernandez and had no problems with Couceiro's 4-2-3-1.

McCarthy also didn't seem to find it too difficult to score 25 goals in 2003/04 playing as the upper tip of his diamond 4-4-2.

In 2001/02 McCarthy in only 12 games fired up 13 goals in Mourinho's 4-3-3.

So what is it? Is it him or is it you?

Benny McCarthy is a proven commodity, we are talking about the best striker along with Liedson of the past 4 years in our league so why is it his fault alone and not yours? Could it be the 3-3-4 suffocates him (it did to Quaresma early on) in a 4 men forward line? He had no problems when he was the point man in 3 different systems up to now. In Ajax's 4-3-3 he fired in another 20 goals in just 35 games and he was a young man then?

How many more players (investements which costed the club a lot of money) will you discard only to say it's their fault? Do you want players who need a little work or just fully developed players that don't give you too much trouble?

Will you ever get tired of throwing sand in the supporters faces with your compliments regarding Vieirinha and Anderson? I suspect that by mid-August Vieirinha will have been discarded out on loan and I'm wondering if it will take untill Christmas before you start finding reasons to say Anderson isn't ready after all. I don't believe the Brasilian can work in this system at all and pre-season friendlies Vs Amateur teams hardly convince me otherwise.

It's all been fine and good up to now steamrolling amateur teams but I'm curious to see how you do Vs Inter Milan, not because I regard Inter Milan that highly because I don't but simply because this system of yours can be impressive (to say the least) every bit as it can be 1 dimentional and I have this gut feeling that despite scoring 10, 12, 17 goals Vs Amateur teams and pretty much destroying mid table and relegation teams in the 2nd half of the Championship last year that this Porto for some odd reason seems as innefective in Europe as Arsene Wenger's Arsenal was for several years due to it's tactical inflexibility.

I could be wrong but I have a sneaking suspicion that Porto's tactical system no matter how much pressure it exerts will be without solutions Vs Inter Milan, it should prove interesting.



André

"Red Hopes", 18 Days Later

Just as recently as July 6th we all heard from Benfica's propaganda machine that Bruno Costa, Tiago Gomes, João Coimbra, Canales, Bijou, etc were all full of promisse and that their Training Ground and Seixal would produce stars and so forth but it didn't take much longer than 2 weeks before the charade has bitten the dust.

P.S. I'd like to publicly congratulate my friend Israel on becoming Outdoor Futsal Champion yesterday. Get a haircut, you're no longer the clean-cut kid I met in Olival Basto years ago.



André

Bruno Pereirinha Close to Loan Move

18 year old Ofensive Midfielder Bruno Pereirinha who won the Junior National Title this season seems close to a loan move to 2nd Division Club "Olivais e Moscavide" where Sporting has already loaned out 20 year old Striker Carlos Saleiro (25 Goals in 04/05) and 18 year old Left-Back André Marques also seems likely to join in.

Bruno Pereirinha played 32 games in 05/06 having started 28 and subbed in another 4, he scored 4 goals and played either as "Inside-Right" or later in the season as Right-Winger. Good player, no question about it and it's good to see the club loaning players to 2nd Division clubs instead of 2nd Division B Clubs.



André

The Poaching Of Coelho

Inter Milan announced yesterday the signing of Coelho for 3 seasons. The youngster last season represented FC Porto's Juvenile Team with whom he had a contract meaning under FIFA regulations the club should be compensated with no less than 400.000 Euros.

After seeing Sporting Lisbon "losing" Ricardo Fernandes and Fábio Ferreira to Chelsea in January of 2005 for similar ammounts and Arsene Wenger's Arsenal interested in poaching Sporting's Rui Fonte for a fee in the 500.000 region but now it's FC Porto feeling the "bite" from Economical Superpowers poaching their young talents for a minimal fee.

"Coelho" (Rabbit) is a nickname, the player is called José Manuel Alves Barbosa and started playing for Paços de Ferreira at the age of 8, he is only 16 years old (born on February 4th 1990) and already has a good experience for Portugal's younger National squads. He is regarded as a fast forward, very strong on the one-on-one and regularly scores over 20 goals a season.

One day he got to play for Paços de Ferreira Vs FC Porto and legend has it he performed excellently and the next season he was playing for FC Porto aged 11.

In 2004/05 FC Porto conquered the Initated Division's National Title and a then 15 year old Coelho was the team's top scorer with 33 goals. Of the 30 players who constituted the Initiated Team only 2 (TWO) of those 30 were promoted directly to the Juvenile A Team. Goal-Keeper Ruca and José Manuel "Coelho". So who is this phenom?

A fast forward with excellent technique who prefers a 2 striker tactical system where he is given more freedom. He scored 28 goals in his first year with FC Porto's Infantile Team, 62 goals in his 2nd year with the Infantiles, 23 in his 1st year as an Initiated and 33 in his 2nd year year as an Initiated.

The 175 ctms tall and 68 Kgs right footed striker was also being scouted by José Mourinho's Chelsea.



André

Sporting 6-1 Real Sport Clube de Massamá

Starting XI:

--------------------Djaló------------------------------Liedson--------------------
---------------------------------------Romagnoli---------------------------------------
-------------Moutinho-------------------------------Carlos Martins-------------
----------------------------------------João Alves----------------------------------------
Ronny----------Veloso------------Polga----------Miguel Garcia
-------------------------------------Tiago----------------------------------------

Djaló constantly switched with Liedson and Romagnoli also switched a few times with Moutinho.

Djaló was excellent in the first 30 minutes, very energetic, scored 1 Goal and 2 Assists.

The Back-4 looked good although Ronny doesn't defend as well as Miguel Garcia but he is very dynamic, he runs like hell and for a looong time.

Carlos Martins converted FKs and corners. Ronny converted FKs as well.

Moutinho looked good and very fresh phsyically. He was the Team Captain.

Liedson looked physically tired throughout the game.

Romagnolli as always shows great technical quality, good passing, gret vision but is still physically weak but his assist for Djaló's goal was a beauty.

2nd Half XI:

--------------------Douala------------------------------Deivid--------------------
---------------------------------------Romagnoli---------------------------------------
-------------Nani-------------------------------Farnerud-------------
----------------------------------------Custódio----------------------------------------
Rodrigo Tello----------Moisés------------Tonel----------Abel
-------------------------------------Rui Patrico----------------------------------------

Nani was very off in this game.

Patricio very confident.

Moisés plays Man-to-Man Marker and let's Tonel zonal mark in front of Patricio.

Romagnoli eventually was substitued by Ronny who re-entered the game this time as "Inside-Left".

Deivid looked as useless as always.

Carlos Martins and Liedson signed autographs for half an hour or more. Martins has a ridiculous new haircut similar to Fernando Torres 3 years back.

The kids didn't know most of the players, they kept refering to Ronny as Rooney, Moisés and Semedo.

Ronny was injured at half-time and Orderly Mário André had to change his bandages around his ankle.

Massamá in the first half mostly attacked through Sporting's Left-Flank because Ronny went forward much more than Miguel Garcia (Ronny does defend fairly well though) and through the centre where João Alves was. João Alves technically and tactically looked good at DM but he definitely lacks physicallity compared to Custódio.
In the 2nd half Massamá mostly attacked through Sporting's right where Abel was now attacking but Abel already looks like a machine this early on, attacks, defends equally as well, not as athletic as Ronny moving along the flank but very focused and never afraid to go in hard if need be.

Got the chance to chat with Paulo Bento a bit. I had never met him and my impression of him is the same as that which most people seem to have, polite, cordial and a real gentleman who is much warmer talking to supporters than he is talking to the media where he barely draws a smile. The same holds true for Carlos Freitas BTW, who is monosylabic with the press but quite a nice guy in other situations as I've come to learn in recent months.

I told PB about "Champions" and the article about him, he was happy, nice guy, took the time to talk to kids and fans in general.

Carlos Freitas and Miguel Ribeiro Telles were all at the Academy. MRT came to the pitch at half-time and Pedro Barbosa sat on the bench the whole game except when he signed autographs.

Moisés looks exactly as I expected, physical, rough but not dirty, very vigourous players.

Veloso as always lacks speed and is often overtaken by opponents who come from behind him but Technically he's only inferior to Polga and he keeps it simple and is very serene and composed.

1st Goal by Djaló, assist by Romagnoli.
2nd Goal by Moutinho, assist by Dajló.
3rd Goal by Miguel Garcia, assist by Djaló (I think)
4th Goal by Moutinho.
5th Goal by Deivid.
6th Goal by Douala.

Man Of The Match: Yannick Djaló.



André