Jornada 3 Recap: She’s Already Singing

By: Greg | September 4th, 2007

fls After a well-deserved three day weekend, I’m back and no more energized but just as thrilled to hit the pulpit of Portuguese football for yet another jornada recap for my nine (welcome, Carla!) faithful readers. I hope your weekend was spent eating plenty of sardines, lulas, and any other fantastic Portuguese food that makes the grill essentially unusable for a few days. This weekend’s gorge-fest on meats and other animal-related products has actually gotten me sick of meat to the point that I can only stomach oatmeal and veggie burgers. Yeah, you care. On to the results which featured only a few draws as opposed to the last couple weeks’ ties which were dominated by, umm, ties…

-=Jornada 3 Results=-

Leixões 2 - 2 V.Guimarães

Braga 2 - 1 E.d.Amadora

Since he isn’t busy on the Chelsea back line, he’s playing entire teams in his home country of Portugal to keep match fit, how impressive!…Paulo Ferreira 1 - 1 Boavista

Still Top O’ The Table Marítimo 2 - 0 Still Bottom O’ The Table Academica (Maybe they need to drop out of school and concentrate on football)

Naval 0 - 0 V.Setúbal

Sporting 1 - 0 Belenenenenenses

U.d.Leiria (This result should put the fear of God in Bayer Leverkusen, eh?) 0 - 3 Porto

Nacional 0 - 3 Benfica (Congratulations, Benfica, you followed the Mapquest directions your fans sent and finally found the back of the net!)

Heroe(s) of the Week — Liedson, Sporting and Linz, Braga – Both scored last-gasp tallies for their repsective clubs to net the win for them. Liedson headed home the 80th minute winner against struggling O Belem after Sporting farted away no less than fifty seven chances. João Moutinho has Liedson to thank for keeping him out of the Goat of the Week award below after Moutinho had a penalty blocked in the 50th minute by keeper Marco, on for sent-off Costinha. Linz converted a cross in the 89th minute to put Braga up for good (which, in the 89th minute, means for a short period of time of course) against E.d.Amadora. See both goals below.

Goat of the Week — Costinha, Belenenses — OK, the penalty kick which resulted from his sending off was stopped by Marco, who was practically standing next to Moutinho as he shot, but I’ve given up on expecting referees to enforce that rule a long time ago. However, you can’t put a price on forcing your team to play ten men against Sporting. The back line looked awful thin on that cross to Liedson which he put in. Not to forget that must have been be tired and shell shocked by the end of the game after all of the attempts on goal Sporting had.

Clean Sheets of the Week — Stojkovic (Sporting), Marcos (Marítimo), Taborda (Naval), Eduardo (V.Setúbal), Quim (Benfica), and Nuno (Porto).

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

Special Post Script — It Already Feels Over — I know that I’m probably getting a reputation for jumping the gun and crying wolf by saying that the way the national team is playing right now doesn’t make me feel like they’ll even qualify for the Euro, in spite of the home ties they still have ahead of them. Forget that for now. It’s the end of the third week of a thirty week season and I’m here to tell you: the league is done. Porto are going to win, going away. They’ve beaten three teams who are in European competitions (Braga, U.d.Leiria are in the UEFA Cup and Sporting are in the Champions League), they’ve coped extremely well with the dual sale of Pepe and Anderson, and no one looks like they can or are willing to knock them off the top. I understand that Sporting beat them in the SuperCup and that U.d.Leiria are fresh off a trip to Israel. I also understand that it took two Quaresma miracle goals for them to edge out Braga. Even further, I get the fact that it’s only the third week of the season and these teams will not be the same come week twenty-eight. I agree with all of these points. However, I’m entitled to my opinion, and in watching the games I’ve seen thus far, Porto are simply in a class above their Portuguese Liga peers. Therefore, to stir discussion and outright hatred, I’ve decided that with this post I am (however reluctantly and begrudgingly) officially declaring the season over and FC Porto the BWINLiga Champions for 07/08.