Porto finally wrapped up their fourth consecutive league title last Sunday with a 1-0 win over Nacional.
Sporting meanwhile scored in the 90th minute against Vitoria Setúbal to seal second place and Champions League qualification.
A 47th minute header from Bruno Alves that could prove to be one of his last acts for Porto was enough to seal the championship and send the Estádio do Dragão into a fit of scarf-swinging.
Alves is being heavily linked with AC Milan, and he’s not the only one who could be trading the blue and white stripes of Porto for some different colours next season.
The revelation of the season has been Aly Cissokho, who only moved to Porto in January after they poached him from Vitoria Setúbal. He’s a powerful and pacey left-back who loves to get forward, fairly similar to Micah Richards and Ashley Cole, only better.
Tottenham are the main Premiership name being linked with him, although Lyon, Marseille and Atletico Madrid are also said to be interested.
Ludicrously the future of Porto coach Jesualdo Ferreira, who is now the first Portuguese coach to win the league three times in row, is apparently still not certain. And it’s ludicrous because the uncertainty is on Porto’s part, who have refused to confirm Ferreira will be coaching the side net season.
Meanwhile, in Lisbon…
Things took yet another turn for the worse for Benfica after they followed up their 3-1 defeat away at Nacional, as predicted by yours truly, with a frankly pathetic 2-2 draw at home to relegation dog-fighters Trofense.
The result could prove to be the last straw for Rui Costa, director of football at Benfica and, yes, the same Rui Costa who scored this belter against England in Euro 2004. He’s rumoured to be ready to dispense with coach Quique Flores after just one season, but then when you perform like Flores has done this season you can hardly expect to hold on to your job.
The two names in the running for his job are said to be Braga’s coach Jorge Jesus and Big Phil Scolari.
There looks likely to be something of an exodus from the Estádio da Luz, with Man City in for Luisão, a lanky defender and pal of Robinho, and Oscar Cardozo, a shit Berbatov who is way too lazy to make it in the Premiership.
José Antonio Reyes will be making his way back to Atletico Madrid after they decided to recall him from his loan, and Mr overrated himself, Angel Di Maria, is pushing for the door, with Real Madrid and Chelsea reportedly ready to spunk €8m on him. Don’t they know there’s a financial crisis going on?
In order to maintain their quota of crap wingers O Glorioso will bring in Ricardo Quaresma. They’ll also try and land Middlesbrough’s Afonso Alves along with Nacional’s goal-machine Nené and midfield maestro Rúben Micael.
And over the other side of Lisbon…
Sporting seem happy to have topped Benfica again this season, which is the least they deserve after the way they were robbed in the Carlsberg Cup final.
Still, nothing’s as good as first place and consequently Paulo Bento could be out of a job pretty soon.
It’s been known for a while that Miguel Veloso will be on his way, and despite saying he wants to stay at Sporting, he’s another one who could be wearing a Manchester City shirt next season. They’ll get his signature by laying a trail of hair gel from his front door to Mark Hughes’ office.
João Moutinho is a loyal guy, but he’s too good to stay at Sporting. Everton could come calling, but then they could as easily not.
Marat Izmailov has had a mixed season. Incredible for the first half, useless when not injured in the second half, but he is still making Arsène Wenger think about him at night. Izmailov is Russian after all, and the last Russian Wenger bought hasn’t exactly been shabby.
Meanwhile Derlei will retire. Boo hoo.
And at the other end of the table…
Belenenses were on the wrong end 5-0 smashing at home to Braga, leaving them somewhere up shit creek. Reports suggest there is little sign of a paddle.
Rio Ave pulled a precious victory out of the bag which should guarantee their survival. It was impressive too, being away at Guimarães and everything.
As Big Bird and his colleagues on Sesame Street will tell you, L is for losers and for Leixões. Académica showed their comprehension of this simple fact by beating the aforementioned Leixões 1-0. As a reward they got an ice cream and a gold star, which coincidentally Estrela da Amadora already have on the back of their shirts … because ‘estrela’ means ‘star’ in Portuguese don’t you know.
The starry ones ground out a 0-0 with Naval which may have been nice for some but was really the last straw for me. Naval have to be the most downright uninteresting team of the year. I really can’t think of anything of note that they’ve done this season, and a glance down their results this year reveals such a smattering of zeros and ones that one can’t help but come to the conclusion that they’re either shit and boring or love binary code.
Results
Benfica 2- 2- Trofense; Porto 1 – 0 Nacional; Sporting 2 – 1 Vitoria Setúbal; Guimarães 0 -1 Rio Ave; Paços Ferreira 2 -1 Marítimo; Naval 0 – 0 Estrela da Amadora; Leixões 0 -1 Académica; Belenenses 0 – 5 Braga.
The top
Porto – 66
Sporting – 60
Benfica – 53
Braga – 49
Nacional - 49
The bottom (bottom two go down)
Rio Ave – 27
Vitoria Setúbal – 25
Trofense – 23
Belenenses – 21