Jornada 26 Recap: Formula For a Happy Ending (Updated)

By: Greg | April 15th, 2008

Once more, here’s them scores…

Benfica 0 - 3 Académica
E. Amadora 0 - 2 Belenenses
V.Guimarães 1 - 0 Boavista
V.Setúbal 1 - 2 Porto
Nacional 1 - 2 P.Ferreira
Naval 0 - 3 Marítimo
Sporting 2 - 0 Leixões
Braga 0 - 1 Leiria (3 red cards in this match, ugly)

If you manage to forget about the fact that Porto dominated the league wire to wire and have already locked up the title, the league is actually shaping up for a rather exciting run in. Let’s saw off powerhouse Porto at the top and relegation-bound Leiria at the bottom and take a look at the table…

2nd - V.Guimarães — 48 **Champions League**
3rd - Sporting — 46 **Champions League, Qualifiers**
4th - Benfica — 45 **UEFA Cup**
5th - V.Setúbal — 41 **UEFA Cup ~~Automatic bid from Carlsberg Cup victory~~**
6th - Belenenses — 39 ~~**UEFA Cup**~~
7th - Marítimo — 37
8th - Braga — 34
9th - Nacional — 32
10th - Boavista — 32
11th - E.d.Amadora — 28
12th - Académica — 27
13th - Naval — 26
14th - P.Ferreira — 23
15th - Leixões — 22 **Relegation**

Second and fifth place are separated by a mere seven points. While there are only four games remaining, a streak can break positively for one side and negatively for another to produce a scorching run in to the final week. V.Setúbal ~~have already ensured themselves of a European appearance next year and~~ can only go up from their ~~automatic~~ UEFA Cup bid into a Champions League spot. What a crazy finish to the season it would be to see Porto headed to the Champions League with one Vitoria and the other Vitoria headed to the qualification rounds with Benfica and Sporting on the outside looking in.

Heroes of the Week — Académica — They went into Benfica’s home stadium, put the screws to them and won for the first time at the Luz in 54 years. Académica also handed the Eagles their worst loss of the season and the worst loss at home in the new millennium. For Benfica this set back means that they slide out of a UEFA Champions League spot and into fourth place behind new second place club V.Guimarães and newly third place Sporting who won against Leixões 2-0. For Académica, the win puts them five points clear of the relegation zone and probably earns them some new fans from Sporting and Guimarães. YouTube it below.

Goats of the Week — Benfica — Duh, see above.

Clean Sheets of the Week — Pedro Roma (Académica), Júlio César not Chavez (Belenenses), Nilson (V.Guimarães), Marcos (Marítimo), Rui Patricio (Sporting), and Fernando (Leiria).

Build up for potential exciting endings or run ins almost always turns out to be a lot more hype than substance. Hopefully we can buck the trend here and get some genuine excitement out of a league that was essentially decided a handful of weeks in. See you tomorrow for a Taça de Portugal semi finals recap / preview, as Setubal and Porto play today and then Benfica and Sporting will tangle tomorrow. Until then… Live long and prosper.

** Update: Note of Blogger Stupidity / Misunderstanding: ** After Joao pointed out in the comments that the Carlsberg Cup winner DOESN’T get an automatic bid to the UEFA Cup, I decided to further investigate. I’m wrong. The winner of the Taça de Portugal gets an automatic bid, not the Carlsberg Cup. One is the “Cup of Portugal” and the other is the “League Cup” essentially the difference between the FA Cup and the Carling Cup in England. I flip flopped the two and gave some bad info. Sorry. I hope you will forgive. So, hey, the Taça de Portugal is even bigger now, ain’t it? A PS to this note, please see LusoCanuck’s comment backing me up and realize that I’m not the only Portuguese person who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow when it came to who gets what for winning these two lovely drinking vessels. I appreciate your undying support though, LC, you da man.