Rock Me Amadeus Nostradamus

By: Greg | August 27th, 2007

amad Come one, come all… Try and out predict the amazing Portuguese Football predictor guy! Stand in awe as he predicts Anderson’s game is more suited for the Premier League than Nani’s and that neither player will get much burn this year. Marvel at how he steadfastly picks Sporting to win at the Dragao this past weekend. Be floored at how he selects Belenenses to make a serious charge towards the top of the table this coming season. Step right up!

Okay, okay. Before any of my seven faithful readers send the attack dogs towards the comment section, let me address each of these postulations individually, explain my reasoning, and discuss what’s actually come to fruition…

Nani and Anderson won’t play much if at all at Old Trafford this season – In all fairness, I think a number of pundits and football observers would have agreed with this at the start of the season. Hell, even Nick over on the Manchester United blog posted this picture with the accompanying headline “Nani and Anderson Get Used to Sitting Down at Old Trafford.” Fast forward a few weeks and Nani is the one getting time in the preseason matches and Wayne Rooney goes down with a *surprise* broken foot. In his first foray into action in the Community Shield, Nani looked like a newborn fawn. He didn’t quite have his legs under him so well and his runs didn’t produce much. After getting more regular time, he smashed onto the scene this past Sunday with a screamer from about 30 yards out, past a diving P.Rob at Old Trafford against Spurs to give United their first win of the season. If anyone wants to come here and say that before the season, they saw this level of both playing time and immediate ability from Nani, I want you to tell me the numbers that will help me win the Mega Millions tomorrow night.

Sporting 2-1 over Porto at the Dragão – This was more my heart and fear of my mother-in-law speaking than what I actually thought would happen. I thought this game would serve as a timid second-week training ground session, but it actually turned up some good attacking play in spite of Porto being without both Farias and Adriano. Postiga was benched and Tarik Sektoui started instead. This guy’s a maniac. I loved his spirit and willingness to leave whatever he had in the tank out on the field. Porto scored the game’s only goal when Sporting keeper Vladim Stojkovic handled a back pass from Polga seven minutes into the second half. Raul Meireles converted the winning tally from six yards out after it appeared that Quaresma would be the man to try for goal. Porto dominated the majority of the match with Sporting showing only small flashes of organized attack and eventually having to revert to a three-man back line to generate last-gasp attacking chances.

Belenenses will challenge for a top three spot this year –This prediction was admittedly a little brash but was also made with the caveat that Dady would be pumping in goals for the Blues. Now that Dady has left O Belem for a younger chick, this thoroughly invalidates my already crazy idea that Belenenses could finish in the top 3. So gimme a break, will ya!?

I’ll be back tomorrow with the full rundown of the second week (another draw for Benfica, yeesh) and some more predictions which you can be sure will lose you scores of money should you choose to plunk money down on them.