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28/03/06
1 - I've never witnessed, and I'm sure I never will, a game in which Sporting lose and it's not the referee's fault. Club presidents, directors, coaches and players come and go and bad results are
never their fault but always the referee's. It's become a part of Sporting's culture; it's so ingrained in those poor souls that they don't even notice the ridiculous, at times even pathetic, impression they give.
The only time in recent years that someone put a spanner in the works, everyone jumped on him indignantly. It was when Filipe Soares Franco [former club president] said what everyone, except Sportinguistas,
had seen: that in last year's Lisbon derby, it wasn't Luisão [Benfica centre back] who fouled Ricardo [Sporting's 'keeper] but Ricardo who came out badly for a cross — something not as rare as all that. Now,
speaking about the Taça game against FC Porto [which Porto won on penalties], there's Ricardo saying that the only reason they didn't win was because "we weren't allowed to win". The referee, of course. It might even be true that the referee prejudiced them, but even so, that wouldn't have stopped Sporting from winning; all they needed to have done was attacked more, and not just hoped for Liedson to resolve things, which seems to be the only way they know how; or if they'd tried to create more chances, instead of just waiting for a mistake from their opponents, which is what happened; or, simpler still, if João Moutinho had scored the penalty that Baía saved, or if Ricardo had managed to save just one of the five penalties that Porto scored. But no: the truth is better served if they say that it was the referee that didn't let them play.
And so what did the referee, Olegário Benquerença, do that was so terrible? He didn't give a corner to FC Porto in the first half and one to Sporting in the second; he let a dubious challenge by Tonel
[Sporting] on McCarthy go unchecked in the Sporting box, which I don't think was enough for a penalty but, if it had been the other way, it would certainly have been claimed by Sportinguistas; he didn't give
a handball against Pepe which would have been a penalty if it had actually happened in the area, but which was preceded by a foul by Polga on McCarthy that enabled Sporting to launch a counter attack; he showed
Caneira, and rightly so, a second yellow when the Sporting defender, with everything sorted out, decided to intervene in an argument between Rodrigo Tello [Sporting] and Raul Meireles, both getting cards,
obviously; and he sent Bosingwa off for a foul he didn't commit. And that's it. You have to have a whole lot of cheek and a total lack of fair play to come along and say after the game that it was the referee that
didn't let them play. Sporting's obsession with the referees is such that no sooner had the Cup game finished than Sporting directors were complaining about the next referee for the home league game against poor old
Penafiel! [bottom of the Liga and relegated last weekend]. It reminds me of the one about the anarchist who asks in each country he arrives in: "Is there a Government? If so, I'm against it."
2 - When I'm accused of being a partial Porto fan, I laugh to myself. The thing is, I don't hide the fact that I'm a Portista, and it's precisely as a Portista that I write here. But what to say of those who are supposed to be impartial and independent that wrote that Sporting had reasons to complain about Olegário Benquerença's refereeing on the night? At least I recognise that the game wasn't worth a jot, Porto didn't play and once again Adriaanse showed a total lack of ideas and strategy to be able to win an important game. Did they by any chance see Sporting dominating, playing well, creating chances and not winning because of the referee? Why doesn't anyone ask the FC Porto players and officials if they have reasons to complain about the refereeing while they do Sporting's: the president, the vice-president, the presidential candidate, the director of football, the assistant director of football, the coach and the players, with only the masseur and the kit man left out? Why is it that when they complain about a penalty not being given, no one has the guts to remind them that the move began with a foul not given against Sporting? Why is it that when Ricardo says that Sporting didn't win because 'they' didn't let them, no one has the guts to tell him that if he had managed to save one of the penalties, like Baía did, they could have won? Why is it that when Paulo Bento [Sporting's coach] has the brass nerve to complain about being a man down [sending off of Caneira], no one dares to remind him that they were one man less for exactly one minute of play [sending off of Bosingwa]?
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And what to say about the miserable story invented by [the pro-Sporting sports daily] Record about Baía supposedly throwing the ball in Ricardo's face? Look carefully at
the photo: you can see Baía's hand in the position of having slowly thrown the ball up for Ricardo to calmly catch it; and you can see Ricardo with his arms down and face
turned away. It's either one thing or the other: Ricardo doesn't have the reflexes to catch a ball that any child could catch, and then it's hard to see how he can be such an
extraordinary goalkeeper, as some would have us believe; or he did it deliberately to make it look like aggression, which only with all the bad will in the world could it be
seen as such. But it seems that there were those who wanted to see exactly that. It's the people that only like to invent scandals and suspicions and prompt whining and
complaining from bad losers. It's the people that have done for Portuguese football. Thank goodness I'll never be the president of FC Porto. If I were, I think that one day
I'd lose my patience and withdraw the team from competitions. I'd leave the gentlemen and regenerators talking to themselves and dividing the championships up between them
, like in the old days which they miss so much.
3 - And so the stage for the Sporting v Porto game on 8 April is being studiously set. A
fitting atmosphere for the nomination of a Lucílio Baptista [an allegedly anti-Porto referee] or similar. There are two things that I'd be prepared to bet on for that
upcoming Sporting v Porto: one is that FC Porto will not finish the game with eleven men; the other is that if Sporting don't win, everyone is going to heap the blame on the referee.
In the Luz, after losing against Benfica, I heard Co Adriaanse say something that I didn't actually agree with but that in no way irritated me: that Benfica had won because they'd
played better. Whenever will we hear the great gentlemen of Sporting say something similar?
(courtesy Miguel Sousa Tavavres)
21/03/06
1 - The technique of transforming a controversial event into a truth that's beyond any controversy is a practice that's long been a part of journalism. It's easy: the fact is
distorted so that the doubts thrown up begin to seem unimportant, and then disappear — instead of a doubtful fact you have a certainty. Afterwards, the certainty is repeated
as such as many times as is necessary for it to become the truth — not an unquestionable truth, but at least a truth that no one can be bothered to question. And
that's how Benfica-biased journalists have managed to establish the 'truth' that the shot from Petit went over Baía's line in last season's game at the Luz. Now the real 'truth' is
that, as I wrote at the time, the ball seemed to go over the line, but neither the referee nor the linesman could have seen it from where they were standing, nor to date has a
single image or other piece of proof come to light to confirm it with any certainty. And when in doubt as to whether it was a goal or not, what should the referee do? As far as
I know, FIFA rules state that he should let play go on. Let's now take the opposite example. I can't be sure whether the ball crossed by the Rio Ave player that ended up
in the back of Benfica's net at the weekend (leaving them in a terrible position, not only in the championship but also in terms of access to the Champions League) was not
really completely out — as the rules state, it must be to be given out. But I had the distinct impression that no way was the ball completely out. What do the rules state?
That when in doubt, play must go on. What's strange here, however, is that the linesman had no doubt whatsoever. The only angle from which he could be so certain was by
being exactly in line with the goal-line. But the thing is that as the incident took place on the other side of the pitch, if he'd been in line with the goal-line he would have had,
between him and the ball, two posts, two Benfica defenders and the goalkeeper Moretto. That is: he couldn't have seen anything. Where that certainty or that instinct to
raise his flag came from to disallow a goal that everyone thought was good (except Nuno Gomes, who always protests about everything ...) is a mystery that, if it had
happened in favour of any other colours, would have led to an endless stream of suspicions and incendiary statements from the usual suspects. This week, the Benfiquista journalists established as the truth that Benfica were robbed in two
consecutive games, against Naval and Guimarães. They transformed doubts into certainties, wishes or personal opinions into official truths. Against Naval, they claimed
a penalty when Léo was brought down. But the TV pictures show that the Naval player touched the ball first and only then did his outstretched leg floor Léo. What do the rules
state? Against Vitória de Guimarães, they claimed that Vitória's goal was preceded by a pass made with the hand. But of the five Benfica players around the incident, only the
goal keeper and Nuno Gomes (...) protested. And the most that the endlessly repeated TV pictures show is that the Guimarães player jumps to knee the ball and that the ball
maybe, just maybe also hits him somewhere around the hand, the arm, the elbow, the shoulder (can anyone say for sure?). And that's how, establishing these 'truths', the
ground was prepared for the game against Rio Ave. The only certainty that the linesman had in that incident is that no way could he run the risk of allowing a goal for Rio Ave that could later be contested by Benfiquistas. The same certainty that the referee had
when he managed to see neither dangerous play nor foot up when Mantorras forced his marker to duck to avoid being kicked in the head, and he still got a boot in his face
after the Angolan's miraculous shot [for the winning goal]. Of course, justice is always important, too. I didn't see the Guimarães game, but in the other two, it's undeniable
that Benfica did enough to deserve to win both, or that their opponents did nothing to justify anything other than defeat. The problem is that it was because of their own
mistakes, not because of the referee, that Benfica drew with Naval, and the match officials were exclusively to blame for Benfica winning at Rio Ave.
2 - The FC Porto v Sporting game [Wednesday] for the Taça has a lot of interest for various reasons and the teams have an obligation not to betray that interest. Adriaanse's
FC Porto play much better football than Sporting, but on the other hand, unlike Sporting, they have been incapable of winning decisive games. With double the annual
budget of Sporting, FC Porto naturally have a much better team and more and better solutions. A team that can allow itself the luxury of leaving out, as in the last game,
players like Helton, César Peixoto, Ricardo Costa, Ibson, Diego, Jorginho, Alan, Ivanildo, Hugo Almeida and Lisandro [Lopez], all paid princely sums in salaries, is
obliged to win tomorrow [they did, on penalties] and to win later at Alvalade [in the Liga]. But this FC Porto are a box of surprises, for better or worse: they lose when
they're confident, they win when there's a crisis, they lose games that were as good as won, they attack when they don't have to, the defend when they shouldn't. Sporting, on
the other hand, are the opposite: they're predictable to the point of being intensely boring. They play to win and nothing else interests them, as we saw again in Leiria. But
they fulfil the three requisites, the three 'Cs' so difficult for Portuguese coaches: they're cohesive, coherent and consistent — as they say, and whatever that is. We will
probably not have an open game, but we're going to have a game where only victory matters to either, and it's going to be interesting to see how each justifies their pretensions.
3 - One thing that must be said, for the better, about Co Adriaanse's FC Porto: it's the most disciplined team in the championship. In Funchal [versus Marítimo] there was the
terribly unfair sending-off of Pepe for two fouls that he didn't commit (but the referee was Lucílio Baptista ...) and apart from that, I think it's the team with the fewest cards shown in the Liga, or it must be close. McCarthy's real or invented elbows have
disappeared (and with them all the elbows and all the summary suspensions in our game have also disappeared ...) and the team flees from useless fouls and violent football:
against Paços de Ferreira I think FC Porto must have set a new record for the Liga — eight fouls in the whole game! No one protests with the referee, whatever he decides
(goal wrongly disallowed against Nacional with the score at 0-0; non-existent penalty in the last minute against Braga, costing two points; non-existent penalty and absurd
yellow card for Pepe against Marítimo; penalty not given against Paços, etc., all without so much as a raised arm). And the example comes from above: Co Adriaanse must be the only coach in the Liga that to date has not complained about a refereeing decision
or justified a bad result with the refereeing; Reinaldo Teles [Porto's Director of Football] hasn't opened his mouth since the beginning of the championship; and McCarthy even
made the unthinkable gesture of advising the referee to think again about the decision to send off an opponent and give a penalty in favour of Porto, which had not existed.
They're things that no one talks about, and it's a shame.
(courtesy Miguel Sousa Tavavres)
14/03/06
1 – Luís Filipe Vieira [president of Benfica] had a great trip to Liverpool, winning on various fronts at the same time. First, obviously, he won the game and the tie, with
everything that means to Benfica in terms of fame, prestige and financial gain. Second, he won two individual gambles: one on Simão Sabrosa and the decision not to sell him
in January … to Liverpool. When you want to go far in Europe, it's essential to find the right time to sell your great players; pressured from all sides, Pinto da Costa [president
of FC Porto] refused to sell Deco in 2003 and that decision was worth a Champions League title. The other individual gamble that Vieira has won is, in my view, on Ronald Koeman. I know a lot of Benfiquistas that were asking for his head before the
Manchester United game [Benfica won] and are still sceptical about recovery in the Liga, and once again had their doubts or disagreements after the defeat to Sporting and
after the latest draw against Naval. But Koeman has shown that, as they say of great players (viz the example of Simão Sabrosa), he's a man of the big games. Maybe he
lacks the science to play domestically against teams that put a bus in front of the goal — the type of play, if you can call it that, which the Dutch are indeed not used to. But in
the big games, unlike his compatriot Co Adriaanse [coach of FC Porto], he's shown that he knows what to do and nothing happens by chance. It's true that he had a lot of
luck in the first 20 minutes at Anfield, as he himself admitted, but after that it was clear that Koeman knew exactly what to expect from Liverpool and he was prepared to confront and defeat them.
However, these are not the only reasons why the Benfica president should be satisfied. Taking advantage of the social opportunity of the trip to Liverpool, he took with him all
the presidents that vote in the Liga de Clubes — with the exception of Sporting, FC Porto and the president of the Liga himself — and he must have brought back in his
luggage, in exchange for the trip, a couple of lunches and the opportunity for social projection, enough votes to guarantee that in the next elections Benfica, through him or a puppet, will completely dominate the Liga de Clubes. On their own this time, without
the need for collusion with Boavista or the Major [Valentim Loureiro, current president of the Liga, former president of Boavista].
With so many simultaneous triumphs guaranteed by a simple trip to Liverpool, Benfica's president immediately felt so 'comfortable', as bankers say, that he started shooting at
those who weren't involved in the junket: he left for Liverpool with an unprecedented mini-political rally at the airport, the objective of which was to offend the president of
FC Porto and diminish the president of the Liga — his ally of yesterday, now dispensable; and he returned from Liverpool to straight away launch into an offensive
and extremely inelegant attack on the president of Sporting [Filipe Soares Franco], his friend of yesterday, about the question of knowing which of the two clubs was more
broke and which of them received more help from the Lisbon City Council to build their stadium (I can help here as I've done the sums: Benfica got around 65 million euros, Sporting around 35 million).
Now, this behaviour of Benfica's president makes you think, especially because it came at a time when he should have been in a good mood, calm, satisfied with the results of
his efforts at the head of the club. And I don't mind admitting what I've said previously: I think Luís Filipe Vieira has done a great job at Benfica. The club is re-born thanks to
his tireless dedication, as we've just seen when he arrived from Liverpool and left less than 48 hours later for China, on Benfica's service. Apart from that, he's had ideas and
taken initiatives where before there was only disorder and incompetence, and it doesn't appear that he receives a salary or commission or a share of the profits.
It's just that apparently the president of Benfica, used to getting on in life on his own merit, can handle the effort but not the reward. He doesn't know how to win in the
same way that he knows how to fight for victory. It's crystal clear that not only does he want to recover Benfica, but he also wants to be in charge of the whole of Portuguese football through control of the Liga, as in fact he said right from the word go. What's
also crystal clear is the decisive influence that Benfica already has in vital sectors behind the scenes (just look at how José Veiga [Benfica's Director of Football] addresses the
referees, as if they were his employees, when he doesn't like the job they've done ...). But it appears that this is not enough: Vieira now wants all the power for himself, he
treats yesterday's allies with contempt and he wants to see his enemies not only beaten on the pitch but personally crushed. He might just be going one step too far.
I reckon that Benfica's president should perhaps meditate on the reasons why one of his predecessors Borges Coutinho [president of Benfica in the early 60s] was European
Champion and had the whole country admiring and respecting Benfica. And he should meditate on what that gentleman of football Bobby Robson says about José Mourinho,
his former disciple, now friend: that if he wants to be respected and admired in England, and that would be to Chelsea's benefit, it's not enough for Mourinho to win — he also
has to know how to win and, when it's the case, know how to lose. The whole world saw that Barcelona were, over two games, a better team than Chelsea and played
much more attractive football. It's only Mourinho who continues to insist that the difference between the two sides was the sending-off of Del Horno at Stamford Bridge
— and even then he was the only one not to recognise that the sending-off had been fair. Despite our fatal inclination to always be on the side of our exiled compatriots, we
have to admit that Mourinho has left himself open to the torrent of criticism he's received from the English press. Certainly much of the criticism is down to envy or
xenophobia, but also there's not doubt whatsoever that the term 'fair play' isn't in the vocabulary of the English, at least of some of them. When you don't know how to win,
when you confuse pride with arrogance, you can win everything but the only people who are going to admire your victories are those from your own tribe.
2 – On a jornada of absolutely no interest, I noted:
— the extremely boring game in Setúbal, where FC Porto couldn't help but win;
— Sporting's seventh straight win against an under-strength Boavista with yet another performance lacking in class and with discreet, but important, refereeing decisions in
their favour (which naturally go unmentioned by the Sporting powers-that-be, always ready to complain at the top of their voices, even if it's just for a wrongly-given corner, when things go the other way);
— the habitual, impressive effort by the television commentators, with their shameless judgement, to blame Benfica's bad exhibitions on refereeing mistakes (if they were
refereeing Benfica's games, well …!);
— the total incapacity and lack of will of players like those of Naval and Vitória de Setúbal – professionals of the I Liga, after all – to have the minimum of an attacking
mentality, with an absolute fear of crossing the halfway line and shooting at goal, which would shame any school kid. If that's why they want to be in the Liga, they might as well not be.
(courtesy Miguel Sousa Tavavres)
07/03/06
Florentino Pérez was one of the best presidents that Real Madrid has ever had. Elected to the presidency in 2000 and re-elected in 2004, he has now decided to call it
a day after six years that changed the club. When he arrived on the scene, Real was broke, but as he leaves, Real Madrid is the richest club in the world, according to
consultants Deloitte and Touche, ahead of Manchester United. To get there, and doing justice to his reputation as a great corporate manager, Florentino Pérez began by
coming up with a real estate operation for the land surrounding the Chamartin Stadium, at a stroke inverting the financial situation of the club. Later, and starting with the
kidnapping of Figo from Barcelona, he launched the celebrated policy of signing a "galáctico a year". In fact he signed more than that: 17 in six years - even so, a lot
fewer than some Portuguese clubs that sign as many as 17 ... each year, and then pay most of their salary for them to play at other clubs on loan. But Florentino only bought
top quality stuff: Figo, Ronaldo, Zidane, Beckham, Owen, Robinho, etc., etc., for a total investment of 400 million euros just on players: 65 million shelled out a season.
This policy, which many predicted would be suicidal, had the opposite effect and as Florentino had expected, made Real a millionaire of a club. Florentino Pérez's feat was
to disconnect the financial results of the club from the team's results, attendances and television rights. If it hadn't been thus, Real could not have continued to grow and
sustain the cost of its stars: the stadium, for example, can't take any more people and there are 30 thousand on the waiting list to get a season ticket for Chamartin, which led
the Board to oblige current season ticket holders to attend a minimum number of games at the stadium every season, on pain of losing their place to those waiting. Instead of
classic revenue, Florentino gambled everything on marketing and merchandising, on the principle that there were roughly 70 million Real fans around the world and that they
would all be ready to buy a team shirt with the name of one of their idols on it - or two or three, if Real could always have two other potential winners of the Golden Ball in the
team. Today, revenue from marketing, merchandising and image rights make up more than 65% of total annual receipts. And the market just keeps on growing - above all in
the Far East, as Manchester United had already discovered, which means that at the beginning of every season, the team goes on those exhausting tours around the Far East
, to the despair of the coaches. But the tours are a vital shop window to affirm Madrid's imperial interests in that part of the world.
The third decisive aspect of this policy was the exploitation of the image rights of the 'galácticos' in Real's service. Florentino didn't just sign them for astronomical fees,
exceeding everything that the market was used to, paying the equivalent of a jet aircraft for an investment as fragile as a footballer - subject to injury, loss of form, failure to
adapt to the club or coach or personal excesses that limit production on the pitch. Apart from the unthinkable fortunes that he paid to sign them, Florentino also agreed to
pay other unthinkable fortunes to keep them on: 25,000 euros a day is a common wage for the top stars at Real Madrid. In exchange, Real's ex-president entered into a joint
venture with the players for them to exploit and share with the club the whole or almost the whole of their image rights.
Nowadays, the truly big stars of world football do more than directly exploit advertising campaigns, which is a method that tends to saturate the public (you only have to look at
the case of the [Portuguese] national coach, Luíz Felipe Scolari, who appears in advertisements for just about everything, exploiting to the nth degree the image of the
Portuguese 'patriot' built up during Euro-2004). The big stars like David Beckham make much more than what they get from actual wages or direct advertising by wearing
a certain type of boots during games, wearing certain labels after games, driving such and such a car, spending their holidays or playing golf in such and such a place,
chartering a given type of private jet (which of course, like the other things, they don't pay for), or for revealing in interviews that they listen to wossname's music or watch
wossname's films. Not to mention the 'appearance fees' that they charge for showing up at parties, clubs, restaurants, discos, product launches or even on the catwalk. Today,
the top footballers are much more than merely sportsmen or even model professionals. They're veritable walking factories for their own image, which they sell as well or even
better than their footballing talents. It's no surprise, then, that we see them constantly changing their hairstyle, showing off new tattoos or wearing custom-designed clothes.
Here too there are good and bad exponents, the good professionals who know how to take advice and follow trends, and the others, who have neither taste nor advisers who
have taste - of whom we currently have abundant examples in Portuguese football. Of course, the English, the 'galácticos' of Real or Barça and, obviously, the Italians do this
for the love of it and professionally. They know or they get taught what the trends are in fashion, what attracts attention, what inspires imitators. When he was still at Manchester
United, David Beckham understood what he had to do to be a pop star rather than just a football star: when he ran out on the pitch, what he had to attract the fans' attention
was his haircut, the colour of his boots, the size of his shorts, the new tattoo. To the point where a desperate Sir Alex Ferguson famously declared: "I don't know how to
train a footballer who changes his hairstyle every week!"
Florentino Pérez didn't know how to train David Beckham either, but he knew exactly
what to do with him and how to make his image profitable. That's why he brought him from Manchester United and began immediately to make money from him at the
presentation ceremony, with 20,000 tickets sold and live television coverage.
However, in the management strategy brilliantly devised by Florentino there was just
one drawback: fabulous wages and profits from image rights aside, the 'galácticos' could not forget that they had to continue to train hard, make personal sacrifices and
put in great performances to justify their status as world stars. But they did forget. In the eyes of Real's associate members and lifelong fans, they became a collection of
mere mercenaries, more interested in money, fame and exhibitionism than their contractual obligations towards the club and the fans. What the fans reminded
Florentino was that the essence of a club is not the players, however fabulous they might be or however much they might think they are stars; it's the fans, those that go to
the stadium and follow the team to the four corners of the earth, those that buy season tickets, scarves and team shirts, those that, unlike the stars, will belong to the club until
they die and do nothing but spend money on it. The last straw at Real was the 0-4 defeat in Zaragoza, and the comment of a substitute, a player who had come up through
the ranks, who, after scoring a goal for Real, said that "it was as if it had been a goal for the other side", so indifferent were his team mates, who didn't even congratulate him.
Florentino Pérez got the message and that's why he resigned. It would be good if his fall were a lesson that could be learned by presidents, agents and players. Never forget: no
club will survive long if the ball stops being the fans'.
(courtesy Miguel Sousa Tavavres)
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