Here's the squad list Goalkeepers: Butt and Quim. Defenders: Luís Filipe, Luisão, Miguel Vítor, Miguelito, Nélson and Zoro. Midfielders: Andres Diaz, Binya, Cristian Rodriguez, Maxi Pereira, Nuno Assis and Romeu Ribeiro. Forwards: Freddy Adu, Di Maria, Fábio Coentrão and Yu Dabao. From this roster, looks like Benfica will line up in the 4-3-3 formation and Adu could make his debut start. Anyone with stream, please post. Let's KICK this thing off tomorrow.
"Today is the new tomorrow." Or should that be, "Today is the new yesterday." Whatever - count me in!
Why get our hopes up? We know that 18-year-old-Di Maria will start and Freddy will only see the bench. 18-year-old-Di Maria has been a revelation for Benfica this year. Did I mention that 18-year-old-Di Maria is only 18 years old?
if they go with the 4-3-3, then i would see the chances of Adu starting pretty high since the roster has 4 forwards listed.
Di Maria is 19 years and 7 months old, that's 1 year and 4 months older than Adu: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ángel_Di_María
Probable team by abola: (like this, or in 4-4-2) ......................Butt......................... Nélson.....Luizão...Zoro*.....Miguelito .............N.Assis...Binya.................. Pereira..........Di Maria.......Rodriguez ...................Yu Dabao.................... *or Miguel Vítor And a confirmation. Even if just a few minutes, Adu will play.
Di Maria has already established himself in a top league (Argentina). Freddy's going to be just fine. He's got a great manager who knows how to bring along young players (Manuel Fernandes), help transform good players into great players (Simao Sabrosa) and is regarded very highly for his previous Benfica mangerial experience. He's being brought along very slowly just like he should. He's a highly technical player capable of magic, but at the moment he's lacking in the tactical acumen needed to prosper in Europe and Camacho is helping to get him up to speed. Signing with MLS, which I believe was a coup despite his inconsistencies, set him back in his developmental curve. Let's face it, I think we all want him learning to play the beautiful game with Rui Costa than the ugly game with Steve Guppy.
usually, the Portugese games are listed on Soccernet. For some reason, this game is not. It doesn't look like it has a stream up either. Is this a Cup match? I'm guessing it is.
Per Live Score ... Portugal - League Cup September 26 .... 20:30 Amadora ? - ? Benfica .... ********** {3:30 pm Eastern?}
According to TimeandDate.com's World Clock (one of the coolest web sites out there-- check out their Meeting Planning, gives you graphic evidence to use with your boss when he asks you to arrange a "convenient" conference call with participants in London, DC, Sydney and Singapore-- nothing firggin convenient about that), Portugal is 5 hours ahead of EDT, so 8:30 PM there is 3:30 PM here.
Love that magic Euro fairy dust man. Anyway, maybe Adu would have been better off playing on Barcelona's youth team like Giovanni Dos Santos than in MLS. It's hard to say, since no one of Adu's talent level has ever tried it (though the stalled careers of Jonathon Spector and Jovan Kirovski point out that European training is no guarantee of a lot of immediateplaying time in Europe). Or it could be that Giovanni Dos Santos is better than Adu. Or it could be that Adu will turn out to have the more successful European career. The choice of MLS or Europe cannot be answered as simply as you put it. It depends on the player and exactly what situation he is going into in Europe. With respect to Adu, it's not like every player he played with is as "ugly" as you claim Steve Guppy was (I have no idea because I hardly ever saw the guy play). Nor is every European player as beautiful as Rui Costa. In MLS, Adu had the opportunity to play alot against real professionals, learn from some talented and creative players (though not as many as he would have been exposed to in some European club situations) and, in RSL, play a main attacking role. He should have benefitted more from that than he apparently did and time will tell why that was.
What a time for BS maintenance! Anyway, who's on top of this one? Lineup? Do we know anything about Amadora, which apparently means 'fan' in Portuguese? Let's get this show on the road!
BENFICA - Butt; Nélson, Luisão, Zoro, Miguelito; Binya, Nuno Assis, Maxi Pereira; Di Maria, Rodríguez e Yu Dabao. Suplentes: Quim, Luís Filipe, Miguel Vítor, Andrés Diaz, Romeu Ribeiro, Freddy Adu e Fábio Coentrão.
I guess that probably gives Adu a better chance to get on. Hopefully he can make the most of the chance if he gets it.
Not wanting to hijack the thread but .... Ahhhh yes, the stalled career of a 21 year old defender - can you imagine he is not getting playing time for a team that will probably finish top-half of the table in the EPL. If its 2009 and he is not getting regular playing time then fine, but he is only 21 and has gotten plenty of run out the past couple of years. Again sorry for going off topic, but Kiro and Spector should not be compared at this point.
Match Tracker (in Portuguese) http://www.maisfutebol.iol.pt/aovivo.php Unfortunately, the updates are not coming very frequently. There have been two entries in the first 5 minutes of the half. No mentions of Freddy.