No replies....are there no Setubal fans out there? Vitoria has always been one of Portugal's best sides, with a lot of 'history', and some success in the liga.....and I, for one, wish them the best of luck and hope they get out of their financial mess soon (it's too bad more Portuguese clubs can't have Benfica's, Porto's and Sporting's MONEY....it sure would help).
The Sadinos with a good entourage of fans traveling to Belem started the match as the stronger side. The home team scored and the face of the game changed. Belenenses 2-0 Vitoria.
Setubal - SC Heerenveen on antena 1. Game is going to be played in Alvalade. Apparently the stadium is close to empty. What a shame.
0-0 HT. Varela hit the post from a free-kick. Hopefully there will be more opportunities for setubal to score in the second half.
Brasileiro Alves scores two vs Vitoria. It's not impossible but to get a 3 goal advantage in Holland seems highly unlikely. Vitoria will be playing for pride mostly.
Vitoria can kiss the uefa cup goodbye. Hopefully they can get a draw or a victory in holland to help Portugal's rankings
Vitória is useless, they are in Uefa because they lost in the final of the cup against us, they have no quality to be in Uefa, constantly with financial problems one of the lowest budgets in the league, they couldn´t even improve the facilities to play at home... Unfortunatly for us we always have 1 or 2 dead weight to carry in european competitions creating severe damege on our ranking. Lets hope they won´t get lucky again this season in the cup...
Boavista always proved to be consistant in european competitions no matter how crappy our performance was the previous season. Besides Braga, Boavista and probably Guimaraes...the rest are useless.
Vitoria has one of the best (outside the 3 estarolas) records in European competition, including beating & eliminating such giants as : Inter-Milan Liverpool Leeds United Olympique Lyon (inluding 5-0 at home) Fiorentina (including 3-0 at home) Hajduk Split Anderlecht Spartak Moscow (including 4-0) at home etc. I only hope they can solve their problems and regain past form. As for the cup, I hope they do get "lucky" again....better them the the usual crap
Exactly we have 6 teams that can be competitive in Europe, probably 7 if Marítimo didn´t splashed all the money from governo regional da Madeira... in obscure Brazilian players. But unfortunatly we always have teams like Vitória or Nacional, they can make a good domestic season and then sell all the best players and start over in the next season when they will play in europe...Whats the point? They shouldn´t acquire the Uefa license to play in European competitions if they knew they don´t have the conditions to perform well, even more knowing they won´t play at their stadium, Nacional will also play outside home in Barreiros and not Choupana like they always do.
Thats their problem they are trapped in the 60s and 70s, living from the past. The management is awfull, only debt and more debt and no strategy to bring the old Vitória to their deserved place in Portuguese football, Vitória is nothing more than a shadow from those glorious teams of the past.
Thats not the point, Setúbal is a big city with 100 000 ppl the most powerfull and historic club south of Lisbon, they have a great history but they don´t have good presidents and as consequence a good management. They had good players in recent years, they made good money for Marco Ferreira some years ago when he was called to the NT and was sold to us, they also sold other notable players but they also did several bad deals, like letting Jorginho end is contract and then come free to us, when they could had sold him for big money 1 year before, they sold Moretto and Fonte to Benfica for peanuts, they weren´t able to pay the wages to the players last season making some leave and most important letting the coach Norton de Matos leave aswell. This season they sold Rubinho the keeper, their striking force is composed of 2 loaned Sporting players, etc etc They have the potential to be a top portuguese club again but i am afraid they are more close to extinction than coming close to their deserved place.
All back in the 60's, in the days of Jota Jota and Jose Maria Junior, who ate at my house 2 months ago. Yeah unbelievable, but he's friends with my dad and works for him at Toyota, and told me about how he hates Eusebio because it was due to him that he never really had a chance on the national team.
It's all before my time....I just like reading up on the old teams and lookig at the stats.....and V. setubal back then, with players like Jacinto Joao, was a fantastic side.
