Liga Zon Sagres

A review on the weekend games in Portugal

Portuguese teams had a mixed week in the Champions League. 
Braga won their first game, in the Champion League group stages, Braga also scored their first CL goal from Lima and then Matheus scored the second in their 2-0 win, over FK Partizan of Serbia. 

 In the other Champions League game, Benfica lost against Lyon 2-0 after being reduced to 10 men early in the first half.  Jorge Jesus will now have some work to do to get into the next stage.

In the Europa League, FC Porto beat Beskitas in Turkey 3-1 despite being reduced to 10 men in the first half goals from Hulk (2) and Falcao.  Sporting CP managed to outclass their opponents AA Gent with a 5-1 score line Goals from Liedson (2), Salomao, Maniche and Postiga. 

The Liga Zon Sagres is still on its 8th game of the season; FC Porto leads the table with 19 points followed by Benfica on 12 along with Olhanense who have been a surprise package this season having gained promotion in the 08/09 season.

FC Porto now under management of Andre Villas Boas whom most will remember as the assistant manager of Jose Mourinho. Vilas Boas will try to keep the advantage over the rest of the teams with the visit of Uniao de Leiria.

Leiria have recently enlisted controversial former Portuguese international Ricardo Sa Pinto as their assistant manager. Sa Pinto famous for punching the national manager Artur Jorge in 1997 for not picking him for an international, has also recently left his role as director at Sporting CP over a dressing room punch up with striker Liedson.

The game promises to be highly entertaining as Leiria will be a tough opposition, given their mid table placing and having established themselves as a team capable of upsetting the big boys.  Manager Pedro Caixinha will be thinking outside the ''Caixa'' to bring the 3 points to Leiria.

Benfica look to put behind their bad start of the season, and with the game against Portimonense who will look to upset the Red Devils from Lisbon to climb up the table from 13th place. 

Benfica's coach Jorge Jesus is confident that despite the 6 defeats the team can turn their season around.  Despite six defeats in all competitions so far, which is the same number of defeats that Benfica had the whole of last season, Jesus will be taking a the same squad that he had available Wednesday for their trip to the Algarve.

Sporting will be on a high from their midweek win over AA Gent, Paulo Sergio is still without seven players. Although he will soon be able to count on Yanick, Grimi and Saleiro.  All three have left the physio's table and are now doing some light training.

Sporting's position in the table isn’t a pretty sight, they lay 10th but they may be glad to face a Rio Ave who are bottom of Liga Zon Sagres.

Academica's game against Nacional da Madeira has been delayed until Saturday as it was due to be played on Friday, but Nacional were unable to travel to the weather in the beautiful island of Madeira.

Ivo Vieira will take his squad into the continent hoping to get a result against the 'students' of Coimbra, saying that although it might be a hard task, it is not impossible.

Academica however have kept working, whilst they wait for the islanders to land in town, they are without Pedrinho.

Olhanense will travel to Braga in what will be an interesting clash, the team from Braga known as 'gverreiros' due to the steam region of Minho will look to keep the stream flowing, following their champions league victory during the week, Paciencia will also want to get back into the top two or three very soon, so not to be labelled one season wonderers.

The full fixtures are:

Saturday 23rd

Académica 2-1 Nacional

P. Ferreira 1-1 Beira-Mar

V. Setúbal 2-1 V. Guimarães (tv)

Sp. Braga 3-1 Olhanense (tv)

Sunday 24th

Marítimo-Naval

Sporting-Rio Ave (tv)

Portimonense-Benfica (tv)

Monday 25th

FC Porto-U. Leiria (tv)