Portuguese Football in English
Fans of Portugal’s three teams participating in this season’s Champions League experienced very differing emotions this week.
Porto put in a sparkling display to dispatch Monaco in their own back yard, a spirited Sporting stretched Barcelona at Alvalade, while Benfica fell to a calamitous 5-0 thrashing against Basel.
Meanwhile Cristiano Ronaldo did what he has spent a career doing: proving his detractors wrong by scoring goals with sumptuous efficiency.
Midfielder scores spectacular braceAndré Sousa is in his third season with Belenenses but he produced his finest game for the club yet in an emphatic win away at Feirense, scoring two excellent goals. He’s PortuGOAL’s Figure of the Week for Liga NOS Round Seven.
Round 7 in Liga NOS brought us a healthy supply of goals, with 26 strikes registered across the 9 games. One of the more exciting games was a big win for Belenenses, impressively dispatching Feirense at Estádio Marcolino de Castro, 4-1.
It’s been an up and down start for the Lisbon-based side but they now have back-to-back wins in Liga NOS as they climb to 7th in the table. The central figure of Sunday’s win was central midfielder André Sousa.
Porto, Sporting and Benfica back in Champions League actionThe Champions League is back with some mouth-watering clashes this week involving Portugal’s trio of participants in the tournament.
The big one is Sporting-Barcelona in Lisbon on Wednesday night, with Jorge Jesus’s Lions, unbeaten in 11 games this season, welcoming the rampant La Liga leaders. Before that, on Tuesday night Porto attempt to get their campaign back on track as they travel to Monaco, where old boys João Moutinho and Radamel Falcao will come up against the team they shined so brightly for. Like Porto, Benfica will try and recover from a home defeat on Matchday One as they take on Basel in Switzerland.
With the help of experts on football in their respective countries, PortuGOAL brings you the lowdown on the French and Swiss champions and the Catalan giants.
In a week dominated by the happenings at Benfica, neither FC Porto nor Sporting could afford to take their eye off the ball, as they tussle for top spot before the first ‘Clássico’ of the season next Sunday.
The Dragons were first to take up their positions, welcoming a fearless Portimonense side to the Estádio do Dragão before toppling the newly-promoted club with an entertaining 5-2 victory. The mood grew even sweeter for Sérgio Conceição’s team when Sporting scuppered the chance to make it seven wins from seven games with a 1-1 draw away to Moreirense, as the Lions fell two points behind the league leaders.
Last but not least, in a bid to dampen the critics, Benfica rounded up Saturday’s footballing action with a comfortable 2-0 win. As always, PortuGOAL brings you all the action at the top of the Liga NOS table.
After a disastrous recruitment campaign (bar the capture of Bas Dost) in the summer of 2016, Sporting appear to have learned from their mistakes.
A series of signings this close season have made an immediate and highly positive impact, as attested by a record of eight wins, two draws and zero defeats in ten games in all competitions in the new campaign.
One player in particular has been grabbing all the headlines, not least thanks to compiling a personal collection of goal-of-the-season contenders. But Bruno Fernandes brings far more to Sporting than goals. Patrick Ribeiro explains why.
