However, now that I have my own Portuguese team blog with Sporting I guess I’ll have to transfer the bias over there and do my best to be somewhat objective. I can’t promise that I’ll be entirely unbiased, but neither can the anchors on FoxNews.

This isn’t going to be a weekly bit, as I’ll have the table at the bottom of the recaps going forward. I just figured I’d give you a quick peek at the clubs and what points they’ve gotten so far:

1 – Nacional – 6
2 – Sporting – 6
3 – V.Setúbal – 4
4 – V.Guimarães – 4
5 – Porto – 4
6 – E. Amadora – 3
7 – Braga – 3
8 – Naval – 3
9 – Leixões – 3
10 – Académica – 3
11 – Benfica – 2
12 – P. Ferreira – 1
13 – Belenenses – 1
14 – Rio Ave – 1
15 – Marítimo – 0
16 – Trofense – 0

I obviously don’t think Porto and Benfica will end up where they are presently. The two newly promoted teams are somewhat predictably in the bottom three and top o’ the table Nacional have gotten their six points on two wins over a couple of relatively cocka teams (Leixões and Naval). V.Setúbal have a bunch of promising young stars, led by Portuguese U(fill in the age) attacker Bruno Gama. They may surprise a few people and finish somewhere near the top three this year. Benfica are still a work in progress and could suffer a few more setbacks going forward. A year out of Europe completely isn’t entirely out of the question but I think Quique can right that ship eventually to salvage some sort of decent season.

The table from two matches into a season rarely looks like the table on the final day of the season. On the other hand, the games count just as much at the beginning as they do at the end, so a quick start never hurt anyone.

Almost as if he knew what was taking place, Daryl emailed me to see if I’d help out over on the World Cup Blog with the push to the Euro 2008. Since he begged and pleaded with me rather vociferously, I decided to take him up on the offer of the National Team duties over on the World Cup Blog and also mentioned that I may take this blog back if he delivered me a case of Fun Dip and a francesinha every Friday afternoon. After discussing the logistics of shipping a gravy-soaked, cheese coated sandwich cross country, I obliged and begrudgingly (had my username and password still dutifully memorized) signed on to get back to work.

Therefore I hope, much like Napoleon when he returned to Paris from exile on Elba, that my eleven faithful readers will somehow find their way back into my arms. If you’re new to the site in the past 4 or 5 months, go on back and see what I’m all about and realize what you’ve been missing. Then become part of the inner circle. You’ll love it, I promise.

All joking aside, it’s awesome to be back and I’ll see you back here for BWINLiga fun and over on the Portugal National Team site for the obvious… News on the soon-to-be 2008 Euro champions! Força Portugal!!

Mourinho’s Gone – Unless this is the first football news site you look at when you wake, you know this already. If this isn’t the first site you see and you still didn’t know this, you need to start going somewhere else for your world football news. I’m a Chelsea fan and a Chop, so this item’s double trouble for me. I don’t know where he ends up, but I know he’ll get an assload of money. He was already being paid 5 million pounds a year at the Chels. I hope this turns into the Perfect Special One Storm and he slides into the Portugal job, as I predicted he would (albeit after the Euro and a Chels Champions League victory). I certainly hope NOT to see him on another club’s sidelines, and would love to have him at least still be a positive and productive force on the side of the Portuguese Convoked Ones so I can continue to root for one of the planet’s biggest badasses around. I’m completely floored by this and hope that it doesn’t create a mass talent exodus out of the club in the coming 12-18 months.

Scolari Suspended Four Games – UEFA suspended National Team boss Big Phil four games for his altercation with Dragutinovic in the 1-1 disappointment against Serbia last week. I personally don’t give a shit about this since I’d love to see how the team perform without him on the sidelines anyways (and with the newly single guy above in the dugout instead). LandPhil plans to appeal.

Sporting 0 – 1 Man United – Sporting looked the better side for about 75% of this match. Nani got a relatively negative response with whistles every time that he touched the ball that dissipated as the match wore on. Cristiano Ronaldo, the goalscorer on a fantastic diving header, got the usual royal wiener cleaning by the crowd. Liedson went close early on but was parried away by an outstretched Van Der Sar who was my Man of the Match. Yannick Djalo, whose start I had lobbied for, was largely ineffective and when he was on the ball, looked overwhelmed. João Moutinho was invisible for the majority of the match and most of the effective service forward was actually sparked by Miguel Veloso. I felt this game contrasted the Porto-Liverpool game in the fact that both teams had an understood respect for one an other and played as such. This game is the epitome of the type of match that is won by champions. Premiership title holders Manchester United were clearly the lesser side on the day but still managed to take a whole three points from the match.

UEFA Cup Matches – Oh stop. Go back a few articles and read what I wrote about the fact that there’s still 14875 teams involved and we can’t really get too excited about this just yet. What I said then is still true. As with all things that I say and write: they become instant gospel.

I have to go buy a few more boxes of tissues for my “Missing You Mourinho” tears and help Abramovich pull his head out of his ass. I also have to find someone else on Chelsea for my wife to have a crush on so that she’ll watch the games with me.

Armenia were already ahead after just 12 minutes on a header by Arzumanyan off a free kick. It was directed well from about 15 yards out, but was surrendered mostly due to poor marking. They truly missed the aerial presence of Carvalho in the back four today. Ronaldo brought Portugal level on 37 minutes with a tidy little close range strike. After this, Portugal began trying to hit everything BUT the net. Armenia tightened up at back and crowded the midfield for a large part of the second half, a strategy that proved to work effectively. Simão and Postiga were nothing short of useless up front and Quaresma should probably be starting at this point. Hopefully proper convoked ones can heal up and come off of suspension to provide some semblance of continuity in this team. Otherwise, and I may be crying wolf a bit early here, I don’t see them even qualifying for this tournament.

For so many years, Portugal has gone with the whole concept of the “Little Country That Could” where a “Just happy to be here” attitude pervaded the minds and hearts of many Portuguese supporters. While a small amount of this underdog mentality still remains, we are NO LONGER the underdogs. Especially not against Armenia. We have produced so many excellent players and have a World Cup-winning manager, yet still manage to underachieve. Maybe expectations have to be tempered. Maybe a squad with players worth tens of millions of Euros and with the Premier League Player of the Year SHOULD only expect to qualify and be happy with it. Maybe I’m underestimating the 81st ranked Armenians. They defeated top-o’-the-table Poland 1-0 and have played most of the “stronger” teams in the group rather close. I don’t care. The Portuguese should have been out for blood.

Watching this team reminds me of the English National Teams from recent years. Hell, they’ve canceled each other out now in both the 2004 Euro and the 2006 World Cup, so maybe there’s something to this. They’re both teams with excellent players who just don’t seem to have that killer instinct and ability to regularly gel on the pitch. On paper (where matches are NEVER played) both of these teams should seem to be in at least the top four or five in the world. In reality, which is the (often disputed and sometimes ridiculous) FIFA rankings, Portugal sits 10th and the Three Lions are 12th.

Are there any lineup or player tweaking ideas out there? Are we glad that Scolari will be out after this tournament? Can you believe it’s not butter? Someone needs to wake these guys up, or the nightmare of not qualifying may become reality.

A reader/commenter named Ryan described Bruno Gama perfectly in his comment on my article regarding Big Phil leaving the National Team after 2008… He called him “the youngster full of piss and vinegar.” Football news outlets and pundits alike are calling him a “Little Figo.” In the end, Bruno Gama has skill, heart, and a certain gumption that is extremely rare among young players. He is the captain of the ill-fated U-20 team, so he is also recognized as a leader. The team’s managerial faults aside, he shone as a man among boys when the ball was at his feet during the recent U-20 World Cup in Canada.

The way he plays on the field is as if he has everything to lose and walks off the pitch at the end of the game with nothing left in the tank. You won’t see Bruno Gama going down, writhing in pain even for the slightest of contact, an act which is rather prevalent in today’s game. To make a cheesy pop culture / movie analogy, he’s like Rudy but with skill.

He got injured in the embarrassing 2-1 loss to Gambia and will be out for a few months. Once he gets going again, he should be lighting up the scoreboard for Braga Vitória de Setúbal throughout the season to come. Check out some highlights below (especially the top one where the French players resort to essentially mugging him in order to keep him bottled up) and get ready to be excited by a young talent who wears not only his heart but also the captain’s band on his sleeve…

According to Antena 1 via the website A BOLA, no talent ass clown Couceiro is being hauled in front of the Federação Portuguesa de Futebol (I’m assuming since you have the intelligence to at least operate a computer that you have enough intelligence to infer what those four words of Portuguese mean) for the horrific performances of the U-21 team at the Euro and the U-20 team’s embarrassment and classless display in crashing out of the World Cup being held in Canada.

At this point, I don’t think even Couceiro’s family thinks he deserves the job. The meeting had better materialize into something more than a dog and pony show slap on the wrist. Anything less than him being removed from the post will be catastrophic for the Portuguese youth program.

** According to Portuguese sports news outlet O Jogo and Spanish sports news outlet As, Real Madrid have reached a preliminary agreement with FC Porto for a swap deal involving Ricardo Quaresma landing at the Santiago Bernabéu in exchange for Júlio Baptista and some purplebacks (we Americans have green money and therefore have ‘greenbacks’. Since the highest denomination of Euro is a purple hue, I have now invented your new slang term for the European currency with this word. You’re welcome). While they’re trading a few years in getting Baptista, I’m actually not so against this move. Baptista has a nice physical presence and even though it only translated to three league goals for Arsenal last year, he had a nice spell where he scored four at Liverpool in the Carling Cup and a pair at Tottenham in the FA Cup. He really didn’t fit into Arsenal’s free flowing style that well, and he’s not a traditional Brazilian player in the sense that he’s more of a scorer who uses his “Beastly” size to fight for goals à la Chelsea’s Didier Drogba, rather than finesse and on-the-ball skill which the Samba Boys are world-renowned for. We’ll keep an eye on this story as it progresses (or dies).

** The 07/08 season fixtures were released yesterday. Of the “Big Three,” Porto has the most difficult start with back-to-back games against Braga and Sporting. Benfica don’t have their first REAL test until they face Braga in the fifth round, while Sporting take on Porto in the second jornada and then up-and-coming Belenenses the very next week. Here are some of the season’s highlights, derbies, and rivalry games:

Jornada 1 / 16 (first games, wk of Aug 18 07 and Jan 13 08)
Sporting v. Académica
Braga v. Porto
V. Guimarães v. V. Setúbal (Vitória rivalry)
Leixões v Benfica

Jornada 2 / 17 (wk of Aug 26 07 and Jan 27 08)
Porto v. Sporting
Belenenses v. Braga (Fight for 4th came down to the wire last year, with Braga edging out O Belém)

Jornada 3 / 18 (wk of Sep 2 07 and Feb 3 08)
Sporting v. Belenenses (Taça de Portugal finals rematch)

Jornada 5 / 20 (wk of Sep 23 07 and Feb 24 08)
Braga v. Benfica

Jornada 6 / 21 (wk of Sep 30 07 and Mar 02 08)
Porto v. Boavista (classically aggressive rivalry)
Benfica v. Sporting
V. Guimarães v. Braga (Minho Rivalry)

Jornada 9 / 24 (wk of Nov 4 07 and Mar 30 08)
Porto v. Belenenses

Jornada 10 / 25 (wk of Nov 11 07 and Apr 6 08)
Nacional v. Maritimo (huge socio-economic rivalry)
Braga v. Sporting

Jornada 12 / 27 (wk of Dec. 02 07 and Apr 20 08)
Benfica v. Porto

Jornada 13 / 28 (wk of Dec 16 07 and Apr 27 08)
Belenenses v. Benfica

Jornada 15 / 30 (wk of Jan 6 08 and final games, wk of May 11 08)
V. Setúbal v. Benfica
Porto v. Naval
Boavista v. Sporting

** The only good news that one can take from the U20s losing 1-0 to Chile in the World Cup is that this had BETTER be the final nail in “coach” Jose Couceiro’s proverbial coffin. I’m so sick from these teams under performing that I can’t even write any more about this, so go read Luis’ recap of the game.

The weekend is here, my best friend is back from sailing the world and the booze will be flowing. I suggest you go out, find someone who has also come back from a long spell on the road, in the air, or on the high seas and buy them a drink. Then have one on me and send the receipts to bob@theoffside.com. (If you really think you’ll get reimbursed, please submit a head shot to Merriam-Webster as well, so they may place your picture for illustration next to the definitions of both ‘gullible’ and ‘idiot’.)

In all honesty, I’m rooting for them to lose right now. They need to rid themselves of coach Jose Couceiro immediately. Losing 2-1 to a ten man GAMBIA is ridiculous. His comments after the game regarding the fact that they had come there to qualify and had done so are laughable. If he has his team thinking that simply qualifying for the next round of a tournament is sufficient to be considered a success, he needs to be removed from the locker room immediately. This rampant stench of accepting mediocrity in the Portuguese youth is upsetting and disgusting.

What kind of confidence can this team have in the next round, qualifying out of third place and coming off a loss to the smallest country on mainland Africa? Surely they’ll be boosted by the double loss of Andre Marques and Bruno Gama for the remainder of the tournament to injury. Maybe they can draw confidence out of the fact that, unlike the U21 team, they actually made it past the group stages of their tournament this year.

The talent is here. The past is now over. Qualification is NO LONGER a goal. It can not be. They need to rid themselves of those in charge with low expectations and push these players to show their true talent and ability to create. Or else, Vatican City might be putting together a U20 team next year to give Portugal another hard fought challenge.

Cue the music…”Whatever José wants…José gets.” Forget the tactical prowess and knack for sneaking out wins that Mourinho brings to the table, he has one gigantic character trait that the team needs ever so desperately: He’s a born winner.

Sure, Big Phil won the World Cup with Brazil back in 2002, but the players don’t seem to be gelling the way they should given the amount of time he has now spent with them. He lost the 2004 Euro. At home. Against GREECE! No offense to the fantastic team of footballers Greece put together for the tournament, but to a man they should have been no match for the talented Portuguese squad.

Couple Mourinho’s desire with a quote late last year from the Beefy Brazilian : “It is logical that at the end of Euro 2008 I leave when my contract ends. The work of a coach is limited to five or six years.” So basically the door is wide open for the Special One whose comments come just when the Portuguese Football Federation is probably beginning to line candidates up in their minds.

If Mourinho manages to win the Champions League with Chelsea, he can probably say that he’s now accomplished all he wanted to at the club and that the motherland is a-callin’. If Mourinho fails to win the Champions League, owner Roman Abramovich will more likely than not let him go anyway, given his impatience and lack of a completely amiable relationship with Jose.

Given all of these facts, the stars are aligned for Mourinho to take the reins in 2008 and ride the talented horse that is the Portuguese National Team to victory in South Africa. When this happens, I expect to get my Super Smart Psychic Badge from the Offsides Boy Scouts, especially since the “Devastatingly Handsome, Arrogant Prick” badge is getting a bit lonely on my sash.

The reason why I mention this is that given his past performances in the 2004 Euro, the 2006 World Cup, and giving up the lowest amount of goals this year in the Portuguese Liga, I think Sporting’s Ricardo is a prime candidate for big club plucking. But…alas…not a peep.

Scoring goals is important, sure, it’s how you win the game. But isn’t keeping the ball the hell out of the net just as important? When your outfield players have a three game week and can only muster one goal who’s going to make that goal stand up? The keeper.

Now don’t come to me with stupid excuses about why a guy like Ricardo isn’t heavily sought after. Tell me that he’s 31 and that’s too old to invest in a keeper. Please. Keepers can play until they’re 700 years old.

Tell me that he plays in a relatively inferior league and hasn’t tasted real club-level competition. Please. If that’s the case, then why are teams like Manchester United mortgaging their future on outfield players from the Portuguese League?

Tell me he hasn’t had and real tests internationally and only stepped in on the Portuguese international squad after an injury to Vítor Baía. Again, please. While Baía’s injury opened the door, Ricardo managed to turn in amazing performances on some of the world’s largest stages (see above international tournaments as references). And while you’re busy pulling your head out of your ass, ask England what keeper they aren’t dying to see if one of their matches goes to penalties.

I’ll give you a hint: his name rhymes with ‘Micardo.’

For the uninitated, watch the video below and get schooled on Ricardo’s brilliance…