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31/01/04
João Carlos Pereira will be the new coach at Académica, taking over from Vítor Oliveira, who was removed from the post in the week. Pereira, 37, was Oliveira's assistant, and also Artur Jorge's earlier
in the season.
30/01/04
The resignation of boards seems to be catching. After the Sporting Braga board stepped down Tuesday, it was the turn of the Leixões (Liga de Honra) board followed suit Thursday over an internal
disagreement about whether to sell some land to alleviate debts.
28/01/04
The board of Sporting Braga club resigned en bloc Tuesday, apparently due to differences of opinion with Sporting Braga SAD (plc), although president Pedro Machado said that the club had simply come to "the end of a cycle".
27/01/04
Académica and coach Vítor Oliveira have parted company, apparently amicably. The club is struggling to avoid relegation from the SuperLiga.
24/01/04
FPF president Gilberto Madaíl said Friday that Portugal will apply to host the Confederations Cup in 2007
(and not in 2005, as reported below). He also said that it is possible that Portugal will be given one of the European finals in 2005.
23/01/04
Portugal may apply to host the 2005 Confederations Cup, FPF president Gilberto Madaíl said Thursday, especially since there will then be ten new stadiums available from Euro 2004
, and three of them (Dragão, Alvalade, Luz) have a 5-star rating from UEFA.
21/01/04
Belenenses have sacked Serbian coach Vladislav Bogicevic
after just 52 days in charge and after he took over from Portuguese coach Manuel José, also sacked. The club had won just one league game in seven under Bogicevic and drawn two. The final straw was a 2-2 draw
conceded at bottom club Estrela da Amadora Monday after being 2-0 up with just five minutes to go. The new coach is Augusto Ignácio, sacked earlier in the season from struggling Vitória de Guimarães.
"It was a mistake to contract Bogicevic," said club president Sequeira Nunes.
15/01/04
The Portuguese Football Federation
are to move house. They signed the deed Tuesday for a building in the centre of Lisbon. The Federation will stay in their current, cramped home, in the misleadingly named (given recent form and results) Praça da Alegria ('Happiness Square'), also in the centre, until March.
The Portuguese football pools, Totobola, are to be revamped in an attempt to stop a slide into oblivion. The new game will have 13 matches that you have to guess the result of (home win, draw, away win, or
1X2), plus a bonus Superprize called Super 14; if you guess all the results, and can then guess the score of a fourteenth match, you take home the pot. Only games played at the weekend will count. And there will be
substitute matches in case any on the coupon are postponed. The new game starts as from January 19th.
14/01/04
Three Portuguese are in UEFA's ideal team of the year, voted for by visitors to the organisation's website. While Figo of Real Madrid is perhaps not a surprise, the choice of Porto's coach
José Mourinho is, and even more so the same club's right back Paulo Ferreira, who is relatively unknown in European circles and is also having an indifferent season so far.
Benfica
are in blackout. The administration are unhappy about the way recent boardroom rows have been reported in the press and ordered the playing and technical staff to refrain from making any declarations.
FC Porto were the fifth best club side in the world, according to the International Federation of Football History and Statistics. AC Milan were the best.
13/01/04
At the halfway stage of the Liga de Honra (Second Division), five teams are bunched at the top of the table with only five points between them: Estoril Praia (35), Varzim (33), Naval
(32), Penafiel (31) and Vitória de Setúbal (30). Varzim and Vitória came down from the SuperLiga at the end of last season.
12/01/04
João Alves has resigned as coach of Liga de Honra side Leixões. He claimed that he had not been paid "um cêntimo" since he joined the club in November. He also said that the players, who
were given the go-ahead to deposit salary cheques from October, found that they bounced.
09/01/04
Superfute, the company headed by Portuguese agent José Veiga, announced Thursday that it was ending its ten-year association with, and representation of, Luís Figo: "Superfute and Luís Figo have
decided to terminate the professional relationship to further strengthen the friendship and respect that exists between the two."
08/01/04
FC Porto announced Wednesday the setting up of a 'players fund', in partnership with the company First Portuguese Group (FPG). Under this scheme, FPG will pay FCP a lump sum up front of over
six million euros. In return, FPG get a percentage stake (from 2.5 to 15%) in up to 11 players in FCP's squad. If and when the players are sold on, FPG gets the same percentage of the transfer fee. There are
already two other similar funds operating in Portugal, at Sporting and Boavista.
07/01/04
Bilro, João Manuel and Paulo Duarte have been relieved of their respective captaincy and vice-captaincies at União de Leiria. No reason was given by the club. Bilro has been at UDL for 11 seasons
and seemed to be dedicated to it. "I have to go along with and respect the decision," he said.
The Portuguese international referees have agreed to referee again games involving Vitória de Guimarães. They had refused to apitar games involving Vitória because of constant crticism from the club.
The Secretary of State for Sport, Hermínio Loureiro, has publicly condemned the burst of violence, unusual in Portuguese football, that left three Sporting
fans hospitalised with stab wounds following Sunday's derby against Benfica. "It's important to create conditions to prevent these situations from happening," he said. The stabbings occurred in a mainline
station miles from the Luz and several hours after the final whistle.
06/01/04
Three Sporting fans were hospitalised following the Lisbon derby Sunday, allegedly attacked by Benfica
fans in one of Lisbon's main rail stations, Santa Apolonia. The patients were visited Monday by the four 'captains' of Sporting: Pedro Barbosa, Beto, Rui Jorge and Sá Pinto.
There were many criticisms aimed at the New Luz
stadium following the clássico. One of the most serious was that with only two accesses to the stadium operating, there were huge agglomerations of fans trying to get into the stadium and being funnelled through restricted checkpoints where they were being frisked for illegal objects. Only the patience of the fans, it appears, prevented the situation from turning potentially tragic into tragic mesmo. A feature that must be seen to ahead of
Euro 2004.
02/01/04
Sports daily O Jogo's on-line version recently took votes on the team of the year and 24,000 visitors to the site voted. Not surprisingly perhaps, FC Porto, who dominated the year on
the pitch, also dominated the list. O Jogo is also published in the north. All the players are Portuguese except Derlei, Brazilian. The 'dream team' was:
Goalkeeper: Vítor Baía (FC Porto)
Full-backs: Paulo Ferreira and Nuno Valente (both FC Porto)
Centre-backs: Ricardo Carvalho (FC Porto) and Ricardo Rocha (Benfica)
Trinco:
Costinha (FC Porto)
Midfielders: Maniche, Deco (both FC Porto) and Tiago (Benfica)
Forwards: Simão (Benfica) and Derlei (FC Porto)
Derlei was struck with bad luck at the end of the old year, a knee injury keeping him out of action probably for the rest of the season. But the new year has brought him the best of good luck,
his new son Giovani being the first baby of the year to be born in the city of Oporto.
Three thousand people watched FC Porto's first training session of the new year, reflecting well the enthusiasm the team has generated in the city.
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