Who are you? Who, who, who who?
By: Greg | April 11th, 2007
It’s a really really slow news day for Portuguese soccer. Maybe everything is being overshadowed today by some small team from England winning a Champion’s League game 7-1. As long as the Chels won, ManUre can win 700-1 for all I care. Either way, a historic feat in its own right, maybe we’ll see if they can put any past Cech in the finals…
However I digress… I figured this would be a good time to acquaint the general Portuguese Offside blog reading folk with the newest fourth place team on the block, C.F. Os Belenenses aka the Azúis do Restelo(the Blues from the Restelo). They leapfrogged Braga over the weekend and, while they do not appear to be threatening to move up any further, they do have a relatively interesting background.
The team plays in Lisbon at the Estadio do Restelo(hence the nickname above). Belenenses have the distinction of being one of only two teams other than Benfica, Porto, and Sporting to have won the Liga, back in 1945/46 (Boavista is the other team, doing it a bit more recently in 2000/01.)
They haven’t really had many stars wear their shirt, and were actually supposed to be relegated just last season. They finished next to last in the drop zone last year but argued that another club, Gil Vicente F.C. should be regulated on the grounds that they used an illegal amateur player called Mateus from Angola. The League ruled in Belenenses’ favor and dropped Gil Vicente F.C. down to the Liga da Honra and removed them from Taça de Portugal competition this year.
Belenenses may figure in the stretch run of the Liga as they face both 1st place Porto (26th Jornada) and 3rd place Sporting (30th and final Jornada).
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[...] In perhaps a weird, cosmic, karmic kind of way, Belenenses have been on the winning and losing end of regulatory issues in the past few years. While their loss in this arena is obvious (see above), their win came back before the previous season when they filed a complaint against Gil Vicente FC about using an illegal player (Mateus). As a result, instead of Belenenses being relegated, Gil Vicente were sent down and Belenenses proceeded to finish fifth last season and qualify for the UEFA Cup. A little more than a year ago, a handsome, sharp-witted blogger wrote a little more about this when doing a profile of Belenenses, here’s a link. [...]
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