As we head into the winter break, there’s a lot of action yet to take place both on the football pitch and off it.
Sporting Clube de Braga head into the break with the title of winter champions, edging out Benfica via their head-to-head matchup. Arguably the next biggest talking point is the slump that Sporting have found themselves in. After a transfer season where they managed to keep their integral players and added to the ranks with Matias Fernandez, one would’ve assumed that Sporting would’ve been a serious contender for the championship. 14 games in and this is anything but close to reality. They lie in fifth place with 21 points, three behind Nacional.
The fingers are being pointed in just about every direction with some focusing their anger at the players and others faulting a serious mismanagement of the club by both coach and president. Perhaps the fact that Jose Bettencourt, Sporting’s president, declared that a big surprise would come when a new coach would be announced, only to end up with a less than impressive name in Carlos Carvalhal, does not help his case much. Early rumors indicated bigger aspirations with links to Jose Pekerman, Domingos Paciencia (currently coaching Sporting Braga), Andre Vilas Boas (currently coaching Academica and former assistant to Jose Mourinho), and even Luis Aragones being rumored to take the job. At one point, it was even reported that a deal was all but signed with Andre Vilas Boas, but inexplicably fell through the cracks at the last minute, prompting desperation on Sporting’s behalf.
Carlos Carvalhal has done an OK job at Sporting, but last week’s loss to Leiria did not leave the Sportinguistas too happy. Despite that, Carvalhal should be applauded for bringing some younger players to train with the senior squad and even giving Carlos Saleiro, who was part of the Portuguese U-17 team that won a EURO not too long ago, some playing time. Not only is Carlos Saleiro’s playing time a relief for a Sporting team that has seen an astounding cold streak from Helder Postiga, Yannick Djalo and Felipe Caicedo, but it’s also a relief for the Portuguese national team – who desperately need a young striker to rise through the ranks at a time when the best striker, coincidentally also from Sporting, Liedson is already 31. The next best striker, Hugo Almeidan, has seen his playing time at Werder Bremen as anything but guaranteed.
Unsurprisingly, Jose Bettencourt has expressed to the media that Sporting will spend the money required to bring in quality reinforcements. The first of which will see right-back Joao Pereira (formerly of city rivals Benfica) of Sporting Braga make a return to Lisbon for the sum of three million euros. A wise buy considering Sporting have seemed anything but reliable at the back, but perhaps more important to Sporting’s cause was the purchase of centre-back Mexer, who could be a long-term replacement for the aging Anderson Polga. Despite that purchase, Sporting may have to go searching for another centre-back since there’s heavy speculation regarding a move to England for Daniel Carriço, with a move to free-spending Manchester City seeming the most likely of destinations. Sporting also seem to be on the brink of agreeing terms with Ruben Micael, a rumor which has been confirmed by Nacional’s president to the Portuguese press. These signings all seem promising, but considering that Carlos Carvalhal is insistent on pursuing a 4-3-3 tactical lineup, it would be wise to invest in two strikers and/or mouth-feeding Helder Postiga and Yannick Djalo with insane amounts of untraceable steroids. At least Sporting seem to be set to snap up Sinama-Pongolle from Atletico Madrid where he had been third-fiddle to Sergio Aguero and Diego Forlan, with a presentation set to take place this coming Sunday.
A few blocks away, at the Estadio da Luz, there’s also a lot of action to be talked about, like promising striker Alan Kardec of Vasco da Gama for the bargain price of 2.3 million euros. I say bargain because Kardec is one of the best strikers in Brazil at the moment, and features for the Brazilian U-20 team. Luis Fillipe Vieira, Benfica’s president, has claimed that two or three players could be brought in as well during the January transfer session, but little is known as to whom. There was a bizarre report that claimed that Jorge Jesus had asked for Luca Toni, who is in his own transfer-saga at Bayern Munich, to be brought to Portugal. But with the signing of Kardec and the goal-machine that is Cardozo, who leads the scoring charts with a whopping 14 goals and an average of a goal per game, this is highly unlikely to happen. With regards to possible outgoing players, there is heavy interest in Miguel Vitor from Portsmouth, and Manchester United have just seen a bid of 10 million euros plus frozen-out Nani rejected.
Wrapping up the ‘top-three’ we have FC Porto, who must still be scratching their heads as to how they went from dominating the league to third place, and struggling for a Champions League spot next year. Perhaps the fact that they sold their three best players Lisandro Lopez, Lucho Gonzalez and Aly Cissokho should put an end to the scratching. That combined with Jesualdo’s reluctance to bring up the younger players within the squad will be very damaging to Porto’s title effort. In fact, this is the largest gap to first place that Porto has seen since 2001! Surprisingly enough, outside the usual interest in Hulk, there is no news as to whether Porto are set to snap up any players in January. The only news that has broken through is that Cruzeiro’s striker Kleber has flown to Italy in an attempt to gain a European passport, fueling speculation that he could be headed abroad – with Porto a likely buyer seeing as they reportedly made an offer in the region of nine million euros during the summer.
Elsewhere in the league the rumors don’t extend past the commonplace rumor linking a mediocre to poor Portuguese team with a random Brazilian or other South American. Braga don’t seem ready to spend money to add players to their squad, and as usual, the rest of the league’s players don’t have the money required to extend themselves financially on such costly resources. This doesn’t seem to be a situation quickly changing as Portugal is still just barely in the top ten nations of the UEFA coefficients, and the attendance figures don’t seem to be changing for the better anytime soon. Nor do there seem to be any investors interested in taking over and providing much needed funds to clubs that are in dire need of them.
Paulo Pincaro is an up and coming football analyst who previously wrote for the LusoAmericano newspaper based in Newark, New Jersey and can be contacted via email at: PauloNewYorker@yahoo.com. You may also become a fan and keep up to date with the newest headlines on FaceBook at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Paulo-Pincaro/199479401891?ref=ts
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Rodriguez (Central-Defender for Braga) is also rumoured going to Sporting.
That is true, however it seems to be dead in the water since Sporting were attempting to secure a loan deal involving one of Carlos Saleiro (which would be a dumb move given his recent form), Abel or Postiga, with an option to buy for 4 million euros at the end of the season, which was rejected by Braga.