Jornada 28 Recap: Big Three Winner Weekend

By: Greg | April 29th, 2008

big3 Now that V.Setúbal and E.d.Amadora have recorded their draw, let’s check them results once more:

Braga 2 - 1 P.Ferreira
Benfica 2 - 0 Belenenses
Nacional 0 - 3 Académica
Naval 1 - 0 Boavista
Leiria 1 - 3 Leixões
V.Guimarães 0 - 5 Porto
Sporting 2 - 1 Marítimo
V.Setúbal 0 - 0 E. Amadora

Porto’s out right smoking of formerly second place V.Guimarães is a rather emphatic stamp of pwnage when it comes to the season and Porto’s dominance throughout. They are now top of the table on seventy two points, putting them a full TWENTY THREE POINTS clear of Sporting. This means that, were the season to be extended out, Porto could forfeit seven straight weeks before they even had to worry about playing again to preserve their spot on top. To put their point total into perspective, they have almost FIVE times as many points as last place Leiria, and more than twice the amount of points as mid table (ninth place out of sixteen) crosstown rivals Boavista. Simply put, they’ve been mindblowing domestically.

Hero of the Week — João Ribeiro, Naval — With his team’s relegation status hanging in the balance, Ribeiro answered the call in the thirty third minute with a well struck shot from about twenty two yards out. Boavista keeper Peter Jehle sprawled to his left to no avail and Naval secured a 1-0 win. Given their six point cushion and tie breaker status over fifteenth place Paços de Ferreira, that goal has sealed Naval’s place in the SuperLiga for next year. Yippee.

Goat of the Week — None – Due to elation and over all good feelings stemming from Chelsea’s victory over Manchester United, we will be taking a week off from being negative towards any particular group or person in the Portuguese League. If Chelsea were to fall out of either the Champions League or the title race, the Portugal Offside reserves the right to revisit this decision and change it at any time in the future. Thank you.

Clean Sheets of the Week — Quim (Benfica), Pedro “AS” Roma (Académica), Taborda (Naval), Helton (Porto), Nelson (E.d.Amadora), and Eduardo (V.Setúbal)

Taking out the dominant top and pointless bottom clubs, here is le tableau with two weeks to go…

2 - Sporting – 49 **Champions League**
3 - V.Guimarães – 49 **Champions League, Qualifiers**
4 - Benfica – 48 **UEFA Cup**
5 - Belenenses – 42 **UEFA Cup**
6 - V.Setúbal – 42 **UEFA Cup** (Spot from Taça de Portugal, given Sporting’s present position)
7 - Marítimo – 40 **Intertoto Cup**
8 - Braga – 37
9 - Boavista – 35
10 - Nacional – 32
11 - Académica – 31
12 - E. Amadora– 30
13 - Naval – 30
14 - Leixões – 26
15 - P. Ferreira – 24 **Relegation**

Based on the remaining fixtures and how things panned out this past weekend, the tight finish seems to be primed and ready to go for the last two weeks of the season. Happy happy, joy joy.