Metal Reviews

Benfica unveiled this season's shirts. this wouldn't be news if the away shirt wasn't pink:


at first i didn't like it at all, but then a portuguese comedian explained the choice of colour: our adversaries won't only get their asses kicked (as usual), they'll have their asses kicked by a team in pink shirts. Benfica

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6lXOljUTOU
(Portugal x Chile, u20 World Cup 2007 in Canada)

Both in the u21 European Championship and the u20 World Cup Portugal had a very talented team and in both competitions the coach José Couceiro managed to fuck everything up. the guy ruined seasons for 3 portuguese teams including FC Porto yet someone saw him as the right choice to coach the national youth squads.

anyway watch that video - Portuguese players embarass themselves and the country in a spectacular display of childishness. sadly, you can't blame the coach for that.

woho, anyone heard of SK Brann?

Benfica sold team captain and arguably their best player Simão Sabrosa to Atlético Madrid for 20 million euros plus preference over two of their players. Simão carried the team on his back for 6 years, and i'm pretty sure he was the top scorer and assist on every season (despite playing as a winger).

depending on which players we get, this could turn out to be a good deal. Atlético has Maniche, Petrov, Zé Castro and Maxi Rodriguez (Aguero is out of the question, most likely), but i don't know the details on the "preference" thing.

either way he'll be very hard to replace...

Wow Simao was a great player from what I remember in Barcelona. Too bad but it is an awful lot of money.


Galatasaray transfered Lincoln from Schalke, let's see how that turns out. He's very talented.

actually i don't think he was that impressive in Barcelona (that's why we could afford to buy him in 2001), i mean he showed his talent but i think that he really showed is worth in Benfica. like FC Porto star Ricardo Quaresma, he didn't get his chance at Barcelona (on the other hand, Cristiano Ronaldo didn't have Beckham to compete with and had the support of Alex Ferguson and a great youth coach like Professor Queiroz).

i have an awful feeling that we'll only have access to some real stinkers off Atletico Madrid's unwanted players. fingers crossed (i'm hoping for Zé Castro and Maxi Rodriguez or Petrov, but the later 2 are really unlikely).

hey with a shitload of luck benfica could get aguëro, but i doubt it since he hasn't been with atlético for long and he's their best striker after Torres.

hm, i think Atlético will give us a lsit of 8 players, of which we can pick 2.

anyway... HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT!!! Portuguese sports paper Record says Benfica is just a few hours away from signing none other than Freddy Adu! no other paper is talking about it and Record is famous for its absurd claims (a month or two ago they said Benfica was going to sign Alexandre Pato), but after we sold Simão fact is we have some cash to splash and i daresay Adu is within our range.

also, the other major sports paper, A Bola, says that Real Madrid is offering 90 million euros for Kaka! to put that into perspective, Figo cost Real Madrid almost 60 million and Zidane came with a 70 million price-tag.

90 million wtf?

Freddy Adu is a wonderkid alright, good luck with that.

it happened! we signed him for 1.5-2 million euros!!
on the other hand, a paper said he'll be earning 336.000€ per month. i don't know how much Simão got, but i doubt it was anywhere near that. if we're going to pay him that much then me might as well have doubled Simãos salary to keep him in Benfica.

hm, 336.000 a year, more like. i think.

anyway, i heard that Man United signed an Australian 9 year-old called Rhain Davis after seeing a video of him, but i only saw the video today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ_RS4Q1myc

the kid's brutally pwning everyone else on the pitch!

Impressive. Apparently Barcelona got a 10 yr old Turkish boy. How the hell do they find these children?

yeah, and i'm a bit worried about this trend, they're getting kids sooner and sooner.

I think the idea of signing children is slowly getting out of hand. The kid won't be able to spend his childhood and his teenage years like any kid would do. It's like a restriction of their freedom. I think FIFA should step it and halt this. Maybe propose of a minimum age contract at 16.

Signing kids at an early age won't guarantee anything. They might just lose it over the years....or might just get bored of it. What if he's a great player, but has other interests? Getting signed would just be a big clamp.

there is a minumum age, at least in Europe i think you have to be 16 or 17 to sign a professional contract.

what the clubs to is get in touch with the players and families and have them go live on or near their footie academies, all expenses covered etc. . i think.

hey az, do you know if this is true?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ICL=TOPART

Hope it is. But sounds like another tevez waiting to happen

i think the club's president (Luís Filipe Vieira) said that Benfica isn't selling Manuel Fernandes this season, which makes sense since we already lost a MAJOR asset, Simão, and it'd really fuck up the plans to sell off the 2nd or 3rd best player after him, and besides that one sale just gave the club 20 million euros (making up for all the summer signings), so the club's not desperate for money either.

anyway, 8 million euros for a player like "Manelele" is a fucking joke!

[rant]I can't stand swedish commentators! Why do they have to sugarcoat everything? Swedish champions Elfsborg played against Valencia at Mestalla in the Champions League qualifications last night and of course everything but a easy victory for Valencia would have been a huge upset. And well, Valencia won 3-0 and the difference between the two teams was almost hilarious, it looked like Valencia were playing against a team from their domestic 3rd or 4th league. And the commentators were absolutely ridiculous.

Commentator: Elfsborg played well but Valencia were just too strong tonight.

My opinion: Yes, Valencia were far too strong, but Elfsborg did not play well by any standards. Of course they tried to defend the 0-0 result but their defence was in shambles. They made several mistakes (actually, two of Valencia's goals were the result of defence mistakes, especially the second goal, where Silva, the shortest player on the field, was allowed to HEAD the ball into the net.) Elfsborg's keeper was probably their best player (despite the fact that he let 3 balls past him), he made some great saves and if he had had a bad day Valencia could have won with 6-0 or 7-0. Elfsborg's midfield and forwards looked like a bunch of scared kittens and every time they tried to attack they managed to throw the ball away in one way or another.

Commentators: So, what are Elfsborg's chances before the return leg?

My opinion: Stupidest. Question. Ever! Does the guy seriously think that Elfsborg can beat Valencia with 3 or 4 goals when they couldn't even manage to create one decent scoring chance at Mestalla?

Commentator: Valencia's defenders aren't the fastest and they might have trouble with a fast striker such as Fredrik Berglund.

My opinion: Lol, yeah Valencia's defenders might be quite slow but we are talking Spanish standards vs Swedish standards here. Not to mention that Elfsborg never even made it to Valencia's penalty area. Valencia could have played with four statues as defenders and they would have won anyway.
[/rant]

My team in the Jupiler League in Belgium finally got a good start: 9 on 9! They did a couple of great transfers after last season, the worst in decades, although they won Belgium Cup. The biggest team of Belgium and defending champion sucked in their first three matches: 0-1 against a promovendi, and today they tied 2-2 against the team that is expected to end last.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!! we sold Manuel Fernandes for 9 million euros (he's worth more, but an investment group owns 50% of the rights)! WTF?! is it just me, or did we just sell our two biggest assets in 1 month?!

on a positive note, Rui Costa has been fucking amazing. at age 34 he shows more determination and energy than almost everyone else on the team, not to mention he just oozes class on the pitch. what an amazing player!