Jornada 30 Recap: Final Whistle Blown On Season

By: Greg | May 12th, 2008

complete With the league still smarting from the Golden Whistle punishments handed down on Friday, the players took to the pitch to ~~earn their money~~ finish out the end of a controversy-filled season. Here’s how it all shook out:

Nacional 1 – 2 Belenenses
Braga 2 – 1 Académica
Naval 0 – 2 Porto
U.d.Leiria 1 – 1 P. Ferreira
Leixões 0 – 1 Marítimo
Sporting 2 – 1 Boavista
Benfica 3 – 0 V. Setúbal
V. Guimarães 4 – 0 E.d.Amadora

** Final Table **

1. Porto 69 *League Champions / UEFA Champions League berth*
2. Sporting 55 *UEFA Champions League berth*
3. V. Guimarães 53 *UEFA Champions League 3rd Qualifying Round berth*
4. Benfica 52 *UEFA Cup berth*
5. Marítimo 46 *UEFA Cup berth*
6. V. Setúbal 45 *UEFA Cup berth* (Spot from Taça de Portugal, given Sporting and Porto’s final positions)
7. Braga 41 *Intertoto Cup*
8. Belenenses 40
9. Boavista 36 *Relegated due to Golden Whistle punishment, currently in appeal*
10. Nacional 35
11. Naval 34
12. Académica 32
13. E.d.Amadora 31
14. Leixões 26
15. P. Ferreira 25 *Relegated, finality pending Boavista’s appeal of its relegation*
16. U.d.Leiria 16 *Relegated*

Hero of the Week – Evandro, Rio Ave – With his team staring plainly at another year in the Liga Vitalis, he tallied the match tying goal against Feirense in the 86th minute. Being that Rio Ave have had enormous amounts of problems paying their players this year as well, they are appropriately going to be replacing dead beats Boavista in the top flight. Since Rio Ave play in front of what amounts to the local butcher, baker, and candlestick maker, I unfortunately do not have YouTubage or any other video whatsoever of this for you. I am sorry.

Goats of the Week – Paços de Ferreira - They had the ideal situation brewing for them. They were playing the dead last team at home. The other potentially relegation bound team, Leixões, lost 1-0 away to Marítimo. Paços de Ferreira had a lead going into the 90th minute against a team that was playing for pride. However, they couldn’t keep out a cross converted by Patrick in the dying stages of the game to salvage a point for Leiria. Paços de Ferreira can probably take solace in the fact that Boavista’s appeal against their relegation probably has very little chance of working out. Therefore, with Leiria already relegated and Boavista going down as punishment from the Golden Whistle trials, Paços de Ferreira will probably be saved from the relegation axe. They’ll stay up not on the merit of their play but on the backs of cheaters.

Clean Sheets of the Week – Ace Ventura (Porto), Marcos (Marítimo), Nilson and Nuno Santos for six minutes (V.Guimarães), and Quim (Benfica).

It was a fun season, even though Porto locked it up after the first month or so. We still have the Taça de Portugal final between Sporting and Porto this coming Sunday (May 18th). That considered, we can now turn our attention towards the transfers (which have already begun with Jose Bosingwa in London to discuss terms of a 20 million Euro transfer to my Chels, yay) and the Portuguese National team’s bid to win its first major international championship at the 2008 Euro. I hope you had a great weekend and will see you back here tomorrow, as always, same Chop time, same Chop Channel.