Month: October 2016

The Portuguese First Division was divided into 4 distinct groups – 1 outsider, 2 teams quite strong, but battling only for the bronze medals, 2 overwhelming leaders competing for the title, and 11 similar teams. Not a new division of Portuguese football, so nothing new this year – only minor changes.

Academica (Coimbra) was the absolute outsider – last with 14 points.

Maritimo (Funchal) ended 15th with 23 points.

Varzim was 14th with 24 points.

Those were relegated -with better luck they would have been safe, but luck was not on their side.

Luck was on the side of

CAF Viseu, 13th with 25 points, and

Amora FC, 12th also with 25 points. For both clubs escaping relegation was considered a strong season.

With 26 points Belenenses finished 11th – the decline settled a few years back and the old glory entirely faded away. Presently, Belenenses only fret over escaping relegation and the future was dark.

Belenenses was declining, but no teams went the other way: none looked like up and coming. Small and temporary movements a bit up or down, but mainly everything was the same as ever.

Vitoria (Guimaraes) topped the bulk of the league – 5th with 31 points. They managed to finish above Braga and Setubal, their usual rivals, but that was all – with higher positions Vitoria had nothing to do at all: they were 5 points behind the 4th placed team.

Above the average league Lisbon and Porto clashed on two levels: the lower one competed for third place: Sporting vs Boavista.

With 36 points Boavista lost the battle, yet finished 5 points ahead of Vitoria (Guimares). Still running high, enjoying good spell.

Standing from left: Eurico, Jordão, Inácio, Freire, Bastos, Vaz.

First row: Fraguito, Ademar, Manuel Fernandes (cap.), Barão, Manoel.

Sporting not as strong as it used to be was good enough only to clinch bronze medals by a point. Jordao and Eurico the stars, as usual.

Much more important battle raged way above Sporting and Boavista: Benfica and FC Porto competed for the title, none the better and only a single match made the difference: Benfica won one match more than FC Porto, which ended with one more loss – 2 points difference

Standing from left: Gabriel, Freitas, Lima Pereira, Simoes, Romeu, Fonseca

Crouching: Sousa, Albertino, Rodolfo, Teixeira, Frasco.

FC Porto still did not have a squad as famous as Benfica’s but was firmly established as the major rival of the great club of Lisbon. Lost the title, but the rest of the league was far, far behind – Sporting had 11 points.

Routine champions, but there was nothing routine this year – this title was won after grueling race to the very end. 22 wins, 6 ties, and only 2 losses earned 50 points. FC Porto finished with 2 less, but Benfica still had one advantage: they were much scorers – 72 goals to FC Porto’s 53. Defensively, both teams were rather the same, yet, Benfica had the edge too – FC Porto allowed 18 goals, Benfica – 15. Note Alves – following his father, he always played with black gloves. Strong looking Benfica, but have it a bit skeptically: with the exception of FC Porto, the Portuguese league was not much of a challenge.

Portugal ranked 15th in Europe and nothing new that was. Correspondingly, familiar season. Second Division Norte had only two teams competing for the top place. Leixoes finished second with 40 points.

Standing from left: Américo, Licinio, Azevedo, Proença, Gomes, Nelinho.

Crouching: Lúcio, Nelito, Eliseu, Indio, Filipe.

Strong season, but lost promotion at the end.

Rio Ave won the championship with 42 points, a small, but very important difference, for they won what mattered: promotion to the top league.

Group Centro did not even have two-teams race.

Standing from left: Vigia, Lapa, Pascoal, Perez, Juvenal, Paulino

First row: Viola, Teles, Delfim, Gato, Flora.

Nazarenos finished 2nd, a good season for them, but they were very distant second – 6 points behind and with appalling goal-difference: +3.

Standing from left: Nascimento,Álvaro,N’habola,Pereirinha,Germano,Tomé.

Crouching: Carlos Alberto,Varela,Freitas,Cremildo,Vitor Manuel.

Uniao Leiria had no rival and dominated easily the league.

Group Sul was similar to Centro:

Standing: Carvalho,Coentro Faria,Canena,José Carlos,Fernando,Ricardo,Peres,Machado (masseur)

First row: Quim,Lelo,Modas,Simplício,Baía,Bolota,Edvaldo,Zé Fernandes,Gomes.

Juventude Evora put some fight and was clearly above the rest, except for the champions – at the end they were 4 points behind.

Estoril Praia won rather easily with 43 points.

Second row from left: Abrantes, Leo, José Abrantes, Fernando Santos, Diamantino, Paris.

Crouching: Manaca, Teixeirinha, Salvado, Ernesto, Jerónimo.

Happy winners going up for the next season.

The Scottish cups presented familiar finalists – Rangers and Dundee United played at the previous year finals. Now they clashed at the Scottish FA Cup final and were unable to overcome each other – 0-0. The replay was another story: Rangers destroyed Dundee United 4-1.

Rangers may not have been at its best, but still it was Rangers – plenty of experience and ambition. If anything, they saved the season by winning the FA Cup. At the end, it was great, for they lost the same final a year ago.

The Scottish League Cup final was a Dundee clash: reigning cup holders Dundee United vs second-division city rivals Dundee. Of course, both teams wanted to win. But no matter how ambitious and good Dundee were, they were not match to one of most talented and improving Scottish sides at the moment – Dundee United simply won the final 3-0.

Good season for Dundee, but let face it: they were a second-division team, and although going up, they were not spectacular. Well done, but truly they were second-best this season.

Strong season for Dundee United, crowned with the League Cup. Two League Cups in a row was wonderful, confirming the real class of the team and also warning the others that this team was going to stay, perhaps getting ready for even stronger performances.

As a whole, Scottish clubs were not at their best and even the reorganized for that very reason Premier Division showed the problems: the 10-team league was sharply divided in two unequal halves. Both groups were further divided inside themselves: two of the lower half were hopelessly bellow everybody else.

Heart of Midlothian was dead last with 18 points. Their new manager, Bobby Moncur, pronounced a chilling evaluation of the team after watching their first training session under him: ‘I left a better club’, meaning English Third Division Carlisle United. It was also an uncomfortable judgment of present-day situation of Scottish football: far behind English football, going even farther away. As for the Hearts, Moncur was right… the team did not improve a bit and after returning from second division, they were going to it immediately.

Kilmarnock finished 9th with 19 points and were relegated as well. They lasted 2 seasons in the reduced top division, but unlike Hearts, they were not a team with a great past and more or less expected to go down: the reformed top division really reduced the number of clubs like Kilmarnock – those, who a few year back, in the original 18-team first division, had sleepy life in mid-table.

Greenock Morton was 8th, just above relegation zone, but it was not really so – they finished with 28 points, 9 more than Kilmarnock. Never in danger. Normally, ‘the Ton’ would be one of expected outsiders, but they enjoyed a good spell three years in a row already. A good spell for a small club, that is – maintaining a place in the top division was their best and it was more, compared to the fate of Hibernian, Dundee, and Heart of Midlothian.

The same applies to Airdrieonians as well. They were 7th this season with 29 points, promoted the previous year and able to keep a place in the top league at least for one more season.

Partick Thistle – the best of the lower half of the league: 6th with 30 points. The part-timers were true heroes – having Celtic and Rangers as neighbours gave them no chance at all for having a strong team. They coped, but just to be in the top league was heroic effort. And it was also showing the state of Scottish football: even drastically reduced league struggled. The team just above Partick Thistle finished the season with 43 points!

Dundee United, one of the solid teams at the time, was 5th , but it was matter of luck only – one point was the difference between them and the bronze medalists. Not everything was bad in Scotland – Dundee United, along with Aberdeen, was the good news in the last 3 years and not even reaching its peak.

St. Mirren enjoyed their strong strong period – unlike Aberdeen and Dundee United , they were not expected to last among the strongest. The previous year they were 3rd, this season they finished 4th, but they lost bronze only on worse goal-difference.

Glasgow Rangers got the 3rd place with 44 points and better goal-difference than St. Mirren. A great disappointment for their fans, but the sad reality was also clear – Rangers was in lean period, started 1979 and the end of it was not in sight. Fans wanted titles, but the club had no team of winners and was not going to have one soon.

Aberdeen was the name of the time – young, bright, ambitious, and more than promising. 17 players of the squad played for various Scottish national teams.

No wander Aberdeen left Rangers in the dust, finishing 5 points ahead. But it was not yet a team at the peak of its power and this was not their season: they were second, but very distant second – 7 points behind the champions.

Familiar… one more title for Celtic, easily achieved. Great run, happy fans, Charlie Nicholas the bright star, the nearest opponent – 7 points behind. But this was not a great team.