Jornada 2 Recap and Other Bite Size Items

By: Greg | August 28th, 2007

jor Round two is in the books and Porto have taken their customary spot on top of the table, presently being shared with Maritimo. If you feel that Maritimo will be heading into the stretch run with a real shot at the championship, you’re stupid. I’m sorry, I know I’m not generally in the business of insulting the intelligence of my seven faithful readers (I need a nickname for you guys, because the whole “seven faithful” thing is getting a bit tired) but the odds of Maritimo challenging for the title have to be somewhere near the likelihood of me simultaneously becoming a ManU and Red Sox fan. A bunch of draws again this week, with half the league drawing and the other half umm, well they had an equal distribution of winners and losers. Unlike my Sunday Dungeons and Dragons club which is an entire distribution of winners.

Here are the results as they were played out:

Benfica 0 – 0 V.Guimarães
Belenenses 0 – 2 Braga
E.d.Amadora 3 – 1 Naval
Paços de Ferreira 1 – 1 Leixões
Académica 1 -1 U.d.Leiria
Boavista 0 – 2 Maritimo
Friggin Porto 1 – 0 Sporting
V. Setúbal 1 – 1 Nacional

Hero of the Week — Raul Meireles, FC Porto –As much as I’d like to switch it up and give it to someone NOT from Porto, the other games lacked a late winner or a last gasp tally to earn a draw. This was the big game of the week, so whomever scored the winner or influenced the outcome the most was probably going to get the award. A neat goal off a 6-yard free kick with a little diversion thrown in for good measure:

Goat of the week — Vladimir Stojković, Sporting – Okay, this is a bit harsh because he was under heavy pressure and the defender did pass the ball back to him and left him almost no choice. However, the resulting free kick from him handling was the lone goal of the game. Therefore, the poor guy “gets the goat” by default.

Clean sheets of the week – Quim (Benfica), Nilson (V.Guimarães), Dani (Braga), Marcos (Maritimo), and Helton (Porto).

Current table
Place) Team – Points
1.) Maritimo – 6
2.) Porto – 6
3.) E.d.Amadora – 4
4.) Sporting – 3
5.) Braga – 3
6.) V.Setúbal – 2
7.) Benfica – 2
8.) V.Guimarães – 2
9.) Nacional – 2
10.) Leixões – 2
11.) U.d.Leiria – 2
12.) Belenenses – 1
13.) Naval – 1
14.) Paços de Ferreira – 1
15.) Boavista – 1
16.) Académica – 1

Quick Notes:

** Benfica face Copenhagen in the second leg of their third round Champions League qualifier tomorrow. The game is in Copenhagen and Benfica are hardly assured a spot in the round of 32 with a razor-thin 2-1 aggregate lead.

** Inter Milan buy Pele from V.Guimarães. No, you haven’t been missing the original Pele, toiling in relative obscurity for V.Guimarães. This is the new Pele, of the Portuguese variety. Apparently his play in the U20 tournament impressed the poobahs over at Inter enough to throw a couple million Euros at V.Guimarães for his services. With Inter’s absurdly stacked lineup I don’t see him getting much time on the pitch this year.

** Manuel Fernandes NOT to Everton, but to Valencia instead. Football contracts are more contrived than General Hospital and All My Children combined. What’s with all this partial and percentage ownership? American sports contracts aren’t this ridiculous by any means. Hell, even I got a check for this transfer in the mail when it was completed and I didn’t even know I had a piece of the guy…

** Antonio Puerta dead at age 22. Not Portuguese football related, but this is an absolute nightmare and a crying shame. He leaves behind a girlfriend who is seven months pregnant with their child. I don’t have much further to say on this only to wish his family and friends strength in this tough time and to hope that he rests in peace.