Portuguese Football in English
For the first time this season, all five of Portugal’s representatives in UEFA club competitions will be in action in the same week as the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League go into overdrive in the next three days.
Sporting and Braga are on the road, the Lions playing in the Netherlands and the Warriors in Greece, while Benfica, Vitória and Porto welcome Spanish, Slovenian and English opposition respectively to Portuguese soil.
PortuGOAL previews all the aciton.
Porto bounced back to winning ways as four unanswered second-half goals beat Arouca at the Estádio do Dragão this afternoon.
Star striker Samu Omorodion continued his prolific start to life at Porto by bagging his fifth goal in four games.
Nico González, Wenderson Galeno and Deniz Gül also found the net against an Arouca side who had competed well until having Güven Yalçin sent off shortly before the interval.
A hugely enjoyable game was played out in the Portuguese capital tonight where Benfica’s 5-1 triumph does not reflect how tightly fought the match was.
Gil Vicente took an early lead through Félix Correia, but the hosts quickly turned it around thanks to goals from Nico Otamendi and Kerem Aktürkoglu.
Most of the 60,000 crowd surely expected Benfica to hammer home their advantage, but nearly an hour passed before the next goal was scored with Benfica dominating but Gil refusing to lie down and playing some lovely possession-based passing football in patches.
Substitute Zeki Amdouni finally broke Gil’s resistance with a superb long-range goal, and two late strikes by Florentino Luís and Benjamín Rollheiser made it a satisfying night’s work for Benfica.
Boavista FC travel to Ponta Delgada to face CD Santa Clara for Sunday’s late match in the Liga Portugal. The two clubs find themselves on opposite ends of the league table but will both be desperate for wins for very different reasons.
After four consecutive games without a win, Boavista will be hoping for a result to give themselves some breathing room from the bottom three. Newly promoted Santa Clara have won three of their last four matches and will be looking to firmly cement their position amongst the top three with a victory on Sunday.
Sporting continued their so far blemish-free defence of their Primeira Liga title with a seventh straight victory, away at Estoril tonight.
First-half goals by Geny Catamo and Morita reflected the away team’s utter domination.
It was a more even affair after the break, but the result was never in doubt and Daniel Bragança’s late strike put the icing on the cake for the Lions.
Tom Kundert reports from the Estádio António Coimbra da Mota.
