Zequinha suspended for one year; Mano for three months

Thanks Luis and Carlos. I suspected it had something to do with the 5 castles on our flag and I do know a little bit about Portuguese history. I just wasn’t sure if it didn’t have some other arbitrary reason.
You guys beat Pedro to the answer. I figured he’d be all over that.. LOL

Posted from  Canada

there were actually 7 castles….seven that D. Afonso I conquered and seven on our flag

but more importantly, what did everyone think of the game?

a bit unlucky on Nuno Gomes attempt and real bad luck on the miscalled offside goal for Serbia, but i feel that we shouldn’t have let it come to that

what really disturbed me was Scolari’s reaction at the end of the game towards the Serbian player who hit Petit studs up

what kind of message is he sending to the team if he’s trying to openly attack an opposing player?

Posted from  United States

Nelson I agree with you totally. We shouldn’t have let ourselves be in that position in the first place. Offside or no, we should have been 2 to 3 goals ahead at that stage.
A lucky goal for them shouldn’t have mattered.
Yes, Gomes seems to be snake bitten right now. Still not convinced that Simao should have started ahead of in form Q…
I’m afriad that FIFA is going to review the tape and Scolari is going to get a stiff fine for his swing.
You can see that he’s just as frustrated as us at letting 2 wins slip away at the last minutes of both games. Tough to swallow….

Posted from  Canada

Togugh to swallow is the shitty display OUR team gave us, saturday and yesterday… They played poorly, no matter what anybody says.

Nuno Gomes, quite honestly, played like shit in both matches. OK, he had a (1) brilliant efford, that hit the wood (?)… What the hell…? And we have no other strioker on the bench, except Almeida, a kid used to play in the ever skilled german league, with another striker next to him, or Postiga, who hardly ever plays in FCP… And together with 31 or 32 old J Tomas, that’s it for strikers, AT ALL!!!

WHAT THE F**K…?

And then we get a goal from the serbs, clearly offside, by some 2 metres… Thanks, mr M Merck…

Maniche was worn out for quite some time befoer Scolari replaced him, Deco doesn’t play shit for almost 2 years now, Moutinho is good, but C’mon, he ain’t no Deco or Rui Costa… PLUS, he plays with 2 strikers in Sporting and 2 other attacking mids. Not with 2-3 wingers (? - how many wings are there…) and zero strikers…

Ricardo was unlucky in the second against Poland…

PT played with lack of confidence and ideas in both matches. Bosingwa showed, I hope, the right-back spot should be his.

I’m just with a huge bad-mood on account of these bullshit displays… And starting to worry. I mean, if PT looses out for Finland and Poland - 2 teams that truelly are shit playing ball, no matter all their strong points (Serbs can play ball - just look how they passed the ball yesterday…), a guy can only can only be annoyed…

Posted from  Netherlands

QUINAS: Like Luis says, it’s a reference to the number 5, you can clearly see in centre of the flag, going back to the original flag, in the overall shape of a blue cross.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ourique
After the battle of Ourique, 1139, one of the fundamental dates associated with the birth of the country (Others: S Mamede battle in 1128; conquest of Lisbon 1147 and recognition from Leon in 1143); the legend built around it, had it that there were 5 mourish kings that were killed by Afonso Henriques. The legend also had it that this battle had had also divine intervention - Christ himself came down from the sky and offered the victory to Afosno Henriques, in exchange he offered the country to Him.

For centuries, Portugal - also castilla - were Europe’s armed force against the Mours. remember the peninsula had been invaded and colonized by the mours in 711, and that Portugal’s role for a long time was to siege the Mours, mainly in the sees. 1415, the date associated to the beggining of the Discoveries is just a reference, because apart from that, there were always commercial and political reasons, beit regarding the mours, beit regarding castilla.

Now, Ourique’s legend is seen as an obvious association to catholicism, but I assure you, at the time it was a Christian thing. Not catholic. Although it would fit in as well…

CASTLES: The 7 yellow castles, in red field, are often said to represent the 7 mourish castles, etc. The truth is that the nr of castles changed often, along time, in the flag. This was introduced, according to most historians, in the “civil war” that replaced King D Sancho II by his brother, who became D Afonso III. The latter was also supported by a castillian relative and rule had it, if two royal family menbers opposed, there should be something different on both flags. So he placed the original flag on top of a castillian symbol. Till today…

The sphere came after the Discoveries period, showing the efford, etc, in basicly discovering the world and navigation and war suppremacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomar
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esfera_armilar

The red and green exist only since the 20th century, since the Republic was introduced. They were the coulours of the Republican Party, round the 19 century. During Salazar’s dictatureship, a sort of “feel-good-nationalistic” meaning was given to it (the republican party became the fierce opposition of the regime, that had the face of what became till today, the Portuguese Comunist Party, since 1920), and that meaning was: The Red symbolizes the blood lost in the battles; the Green represents Hope, the hope “we all” have. Funny for a country whose national feeling is “Saudade”…

Posted from  Netherlands

@ Ceasar:

Posted from  Netherlands

Thanks

Is there going to be a test??

Posted from  Canada

Yup… Against Finland in November, and more important, against the so called “weak” teams till then… Everything can still happen, but PT’s ball game must change something…

Posted from  Netherlands

Very simple, we must switch from a 4-5-1 (Scolari’s prefered system which isn’t working, too easy to defend against without a killer striker at our disposal) to a 4-4-2.
Almedia as the front striker with Ronaldo behind and free to roam.
Simao and Q on the wings. Deco and Petit (I’d prefer Fernandes) in mid and our regular back 4 I hope.
This is a look that I think allows Simao and Deco to actually showcase their considerable talents (Pedro I agree that Deco hasn’t played well for us for at least 2 years - bring in Moutinho). Q crosses to 2 tall players in the middle, one (CR7)of which scares the begeebees out of defenders in the air or ground.

Besides it’s not like what we are doing now is working…

Posted from  Canada

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=462726&cc=5739

I don’t know… What I saw was the wingers trying to dribble their way - doesn’t work always, specially if everybody is counting on it, striker is clearly at a lower level - we don’t have any more, midfield wasn’t really working properly. Petit covered everything, as usual, but he can’t start a building play. Tiago isn’t as good in defending as Maniche and also not as deadly when going up. Maybe a season with Juventus teaches him the tricks of positioning himself on the midfield to kill the enemy with little efford. Deco isn’t building shit nor getting the killer rebound shoot.

CR and Q don’t know how to defend…

Plus, CR could’t play in the centre, I think…

On the other hand, if Deco isn’t playing well and if the midfield isn’t working anyway, then indeed why not the 4-2-2? Then maybe 2 real strikers (Postiga/Gomes + Almeida - clumsy as they might be, they’d alwways force defenders there, which would give more space for the wingers to wide open the enemy’s defense), 2 wingers and 2 strong mids - Petit/Maniche, Petit/Tiago, Tiago/Maniche. Full backs going up, as usual (Miguel and Bosingwa on the right, Ferreira on the left, or Caneira). When Carvalho plays he can allow for the centre mid to go up.

If it wouldn’t work it’d take only 1 sub to go back to the usual way… What I know is that this sucks…

Posted from  Netherlands

Gentlemen,
I agree Deco played like shit, he was a step slow all night. Gomes is snake bitten, but should not be playing up in fromt now. But are Two Shitty strikers better than one, If it frees up the wings I say yes. Quaresma is in form, none of them can play D worth a damn anyway so you can slot them whereever you want, they are just going to interchange anyway. If Pepe and Carvalho are on the back line with Bosingwa on the right. My grandmother can play the left and she’s dead God rest her soul. The game sucked on all levels and Merk called a bad (for him anyway) game.

Posted from  United States

Gentlemen,
I agree Deco played like shit, he was a step slow all night. Gomes is snake bitten, but should not be playing up in fromt now. But are Two Shitty strikers better than one, If it frees up the wings I say yes. Quaresma is in form, none of them can play D worth a damn anyway so you can slot them whereever you want, they are just going to interchange anyway. If Pepe and Carvalho are on the back line with Bosingwa on the right. My grandmother can play the left and she’s dead God rest her soul. The game sucked on all levels and Merk called a bad (for him anyway) game.

Posted from  United States

Woooooow, I picked a crazy day to come back and post here after my internet died on me a while ago….anyway I just read that Mourinho has quit as coach of Chelsea!!!! Huge news….with the recent poor results and Big Phil’s ‘punch’ is anyone else thinking Jose’s time as NT coach my be coming along sooner rather than later???

Posted from  Canada

Don’t know about that, Daria, but Scolari was suspended for 4 matches, which means, he’ll miss the remainder of the qualifying games…

The serbian player’s gonna be out for the next 2 matches.

Posted from  Netherlands

I see a straight swap Scolari-Mourinho coming!

Posted from  Canada

Luís Figo gave a very long and personal Interview last week:

http://www.inter.it/aas/news/reader?N=27371&L=en&IDINI=27377

At the beginning I thought he might have lost some of his intelligence, but it becomes better later on.

And for those of you who might be a bit mad at Ronaldo for scoring the winning goal against Sporting:

http://www.pfutebol.com/news/September%202007/Ronaldo%27s%20Proudest%20Sporting%20Moment.htm

Posted from  Austria

Another bit of bad news for Portugal with Andrade out for the remainder of qualifiers with a fractured knee-cap (ouch). Really things cant get a whole lot worse so I am sure they have to start getting better sometime!

Posted from  Canada

Well another round of qualifying games coming up. What do you guys think the line up and/or call ups are going to be?

Based on the way Almieda is playing, I can’t see how any coach wouldn’t be starting him. But, I’m afraid that if I had to bet on it, my money says Scolari will be going with his usual. Nuno No Goals will be starting and Almieda may not even get subbed in. Gomes isn’t even starting for Benfica!

What do you guys think?

Posted from  Canada

Ok, I know there hasn’t been any updates on the site for a long time. But now we are getting spammed as well. I am sorry but someone needs to step up and start writing again. Luis, I have been waiting for tugasblog for over three months, and nothing. I would volunteer myself, but I believe there are much more knowledgeable people on this blog than I. Eric keep your crap off of our blog.

This is just a piece of a bigger, and very nice, interview with Makukula (in PTese).

http://www.maisfutebol.iol.pt/noticia.php?div_id=1461&id=871242

While we wait for Luis’s blog ;-), maybe he could translate it and make a post out of the full thing… It’s mainly Maukula answering questions made to him by the readers…

C’mon, Luis… After all, a striker that actually scores is always an event, for portuguese football…

Posted from  Netherlands

I write about Portuguese stuff over on the sister blog, The Offside. I primarily cover the domestic league but I also discuss the NT during international breaks as well. Plus I’m really, ridiculously good looking. Check the blog at http://portugal.theoffside.com . Or else.

Posted from  United States

WE’RE THROUGH!

PT played a very good match against FIN, dispite of the draw. With all the injuries and difficulties, we still made it.

Pepe’s debut was brilliant + some sort of 3 def, releasing the full-backs (Bosingwa has been brilliant) and allowing the mids (”getting better every day” Veloso and “I didn’t eat this morning” Maniche) to go up.

England’s out…

Posted from  Netherlands

Honestly, I haven’t got any problems with the English NT but I’m damned glad not to have the English hooligans here in Austria. I don’t believe this pathetic country is able to handle any real tough guys.

Posted from  Austria

It’s nice to see ENG get some lessons in being humble… http://www.maisfutebol.iol.pt/noticia.php?id=883541&div_id=1194
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/internationals/7108764.stm

Anyway, Carlos, you’re in the right spot to watch the Euro, dude…

Posted from  Netherlands

The whole U20 thing was incredibly stupid, and mostly our fault. However, the Chilean team was definitely not innocent, Mano did react to something, and so did the other players. The fact that Chile got into huge trouble in the next game didn’t surprise me at all. But the fact is that Mano shouldn’t have done that and Zequinha was out of his mind. Then there is Scolari…what the hell was he thinking? It doesn’t matter if he is from Brasil, when he is on the sidelines, managing our team, he represents out country, and there was no excuse for what he did in the Serbia game. I’m glad we made the Euro2008. Since June 2006 the image of our country in the footballing world has gone waaaaay downhill, and we must work to change it. It will be hard, the teams are all good, but I know we can do it. Força!

Posted from  United States