The second round of the new Liga Bwin season was an historic one as promoted side Vizela secured the first ever top flight win in their history, dramatically coming from behind to beat Tondela. Boavista and Marítimo also bounced back from opening day defeats to get off the mark, triumphing over Paços Ferreira and Belenenses SAD respectively.
Elsewhere defending champions Sporting continued their 100% start and returned to the summit in doing so thanks to a hard-fought victory over Braga. The Lions’ rivals Benfica kept in touch, comfortably overcoming league new boys Arouca.
Porto also kept up their title credentials with a narrow win against Famalicão, whose former striker Toni Martínez came back to haunt them in devastating fashion, the Spaniard is in focus for this edition of the PortuGOAL Figure of the Week.
Spanish forward António Martínez is in his third season on Portuguese shores, significantly impressing with Famalicão in 2019/20 to earn a move to giants Porto last summer. His debut campaign was mixed, finding opportunities few and far between for the majority but towards the latter stages of his second season he began to carve a niche in Sérgio Conceição’s preferred XI.
This has continued into the current season, Martinez’s excellent pre-season form and developing partnership with Iranian striker Mehdi Taremi leading the pair to front Conceição’s tried and tested 4-4-2 formation. The Spaniard has rewarded the manager’s faith already, beginning the Liga Bwin campaign as the in-form player in his position, continuing his sharpness in front of goal in Sunday evening’s trip to face his old team at Estádio Municipal 22 de Junho.
The Martínez-Taremi duo was running smoothly from the early stages, the Iran international releasing his strike partner to test Famalicão goalkeeper Luiz Felipe in the 11th minute, the Brazilian proving equal to the Porto man’s low left-footed shot.
There was nothing Felipe could do a minute later though as Famalicão ignored the warning sign of Martínez’s superb ability to time his run in behind the defence. Once again Taremi was the supplier, his exquisite through ball calmly collected by Martínez, who coolly rounded the keeper before scuffing a finish into the empty net.
Martínez offered the customary “apology” in his celebration having notched against his former team that he clearly has great fondness and respect for, and his arms were aloft for the same reasons again just before the half time whistle as he doubled his and Porto’s advantage. Once again the key feature of the goal was Martínez’s perfectly timed run, in this instance Otávio providing the perfectly-weight pass for his striker to side-foot first time beyond Felipe for 2-0.
Martínez’s influence waned in the second period as the home side came roaring back, pulling back what would prove a consolation goal as they were later denied a dramatic stoppage time equaliser by VAR.
Overall a winning start to Porto’s league season was maintained as they look to dethrone defending champions Sporting. As well as the two giant clubs doing battle for the Liga Bwin title, players from each team could well end up duelling for the golden boot as Martínez moved onto three league goals at the weekend, level with the current hold of the aforementioned individual award, the Lions’ Pedro Gonçalves. The race is on for the 2021/22 edition.
By Jamie Farr
