How the Grinch Sold the Portuguese Liga
By: Greg | July 26th, 2007
(Note the irony of the Grinch’s colors, while he takes everything from renowned Portuguese soccer fan Cindy Lou Who and pats her on the head like the dumb child these teams must think we are.)
In the movie True Lies, Tom Arnold’s character describes how his wife left him. He’s trying to convey to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character just how much of a rapacious psycho she is. He tells him “I have no idea anything’s going on, right? I come home one day, everything’s gone. She even took the ice cube trays out of the freezer! What kind of a sick b***h takes the ice cube trays out of the freezer?” Well, Simão’s not exactly as cheap or insignificant as the ice cube trays, but he’s probably the last of the house cleaning that the rest of the world has done to the Portuguese Liga. And boy is the house now almost entirely wiped out.
Nani, Anderson, Pepe, and now the Benfica captain have all made their way out of the league. To what avail? Maybe they’ll be playing at higher levels. Maybe Nani won’t even be playing at all. Regardless of what and how they do in their respective new leagues, what is the sum total of talent coming in as a result of their sales? The simple answer is: as of right now, basically nothing all that exciting.
Atletico Madrid are paying Benfica 20 million Euros plus a player or two in order to bring in the Portuguese midfielder for another crack at Spanish League football. They’ve been rather active in the offseason, using windfall of cash obtained from the sale of Fernando Torres to Liverpool to bring in a number of players. Instead of following Atletico’s lead in purchasing higher profile players to improve the squad, teams such as Porto, Sporting, and Benfica are buying low priced Eastern European and Brazilian players. What in screaming hell is going on? Do any of these teams want to win their respective European cup tournaments? Are the hookers and “fruit” that Pinto da Costa allegedly purchased really that expensive?
If there is a bright side in all of this, at least plenty of young guys should get a legitimate shot this year…only to be shown off to the world and be bought after the end of the season.
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Comments
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The raping of our league continues and will continue as 11) the players will make more money in Spain, Italy or England. 2) It’s hard for the club to say no to all that money. For sporting re the Nani transfer are to receive somewhere about 25 million euros, represents 10 million more euros than their entire budget last season. I remember seeing on RTP, that the budgets for the big 3 last year were as follows; Porto 40 million euros, Benfica 25 million euros and Sporting 15 million Euros. While it is sad to see these players leave especially considering 3 of them are still quite young (Nani, Anderson, Pepe) and talented, from a clubs perspective it makes good business sense, as their values may never be higher. For Simao, this represented a final chance to prove his worth and double his salary at the same time, I understand Benfica were reluctant to deal him, only agreed in respect to the great service Simao has provided them.
I am not entirely opposed to selling the players (though I would rather the younger players have stayed a couple more years) as long as they are replaced by talented exciting Portuguese players. Maybe Simao departure opens a spot for Fabio Coentrao to play more, he was certainly exciting to watch at the U20 (one of the few Portuguese who in my opinion played well.)
I confess I know little of the eastern European players, the little I have seen of them in friendlies doesn’t exatcly feel me with confidence, but it’s early so we will see.Posted from
United States
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The sale is just started, step right up, get yourself some Portuguese quality footballista’s, buy now before it’s all sold out! This sale won’t last ladies and germs!
Let’s see:
Quaresma
Veloso
Moutinho
Manuel Fernandes
BosingwaI’d like to see all the above get sold to top level clubs, so they can get some challenge and play with better players. However, my interests are soley PT NT driven.
The reality is the ChupaLiga is going to be mostly a feeder league, which occassionally one team will have the strength to go deep and win it the CL, but they can’t afford to pass up the prices they are getting nowadays, so they will have to pick their spots.
Posted from
Canada -
Hey Joe, the Benfica budget of only 25 million is a bit surprising. The budget for Porto of 40 million in expenses is about right, as it was about that a couple years ago when they won CL. However, where is all the money going in Benfica. They have the largest stadium, and largest fanbase of any PT club. What gives?
Posted from
Canada -
OGT- Don’t know how the numbers were derived, but RTP had mentioned those numbers prior to the start of last season. It kind of surprised me as well given their status in Portuguese futebol, I would have thought they would be a bit closer, maybe someone’s pocketing a few bucks, wouldn’t surprise me with all the coruption in futebol in general (not just the superliga, everywhere).
Posted from
United States
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