Portugal in Europe thread 2016-2017 thread Arouca take on Hercales Almelo of The Netherlands in the 3rd qualifying round of the UEL Rio Ave take on either Slavia Prague or Levadia Tallin
I beg to differ that Heracles team is in its first EL season as is Arouca. Arouca have some good players. I say it's 50-50 but I have a feeling Arouca will edge them out. They have made some great additions and have done great at some of the upgrades at the stadium. Heracles also have a good team and finished extremely high over the likes of Heerenveen, AZ and Twente but Arouca also finished ahead of some good teams in Portugal. Domestically it's gonna be a long season for Arouca as I don't see them doing all that well in all the competitions they are in. If they get past Hercales I don't see them doing that well but I could be wrong. Domestically I'm hoping Boavista, Guimarães and Chaves have a good year.
Arouca 1-0 down against Heracles Almelo in The Netherlands. Sloppy play on the goal still plenty of time left for an away goal or win. Rio Ave are in Prague playing Slavia so far 0-0 but very fast paced game, Wakaso playing lone CDM and is doing a great job he won't be at Rio Ave much longer Let's go boys VAMOS PORTUGAL
Last minute goal from Cape Verde international Gege sees Arouca get 1-1 draw in the Netherlands in Almelo against Heracles. Valuable goal to take to Arouca. Hercales Almelo 1 - 1 Arouca
And Rio Ave tied away to Slavia Prague 0-0. It was a pretty open game with the goalkeepers producing numerous saves.
Arouca host Heracles Almelo, 1-1 on aggregate with an away goal. Rio Ave host Slavia Prague 0-0 on aggregate.
Disappointing for Rio Ave to be knocked out early. Tough draws, especially for Arouca. We might only have 4 teams in Europe by the time the group stages comes around.
I can see Porto and Benfica winning their groups and I can see Sporting suprise Real and Dortmund, if anything I can see Legia doing well they are the first club from Poland to qualify in 21 years Braga will also go through imho they recruited well
Late to the game, y'all, apologies. And what a shite time to get back into it. Last week sucked about as hard as you might have imagined: Braga, Benfica, and Porto lost leads in games they should have won, and got draws instead; and perhaps most painful of all, SCP blew a 1-0 lead in the 90th min at the Bernabeu and lost to Real. Ouch x4. Specifically, Benfica 1-1 Besiktas Porto 1-1 Kobenhavn Real Madrid 2-1 Sporting CP Braga 1-1 Gent No reason to panic but not a great start by any stretch. Braga, Benfica and Porto are now in the middle of their groups thanks to the dropped home points, and SCP is third due to being in the same group as Legia Warsawa, who lost 0-6 *at home* to Borussia Dortmund--a very fortunate break for SCP's hopes to at least salvage a spot in the Europa League (which may be a good outcome given that it's in a group with Real Madrid and BVB). Overall, we're not doing so hot in Europe, #17 overall. The teams we care most about should be France (just ahead) and Russia (just behind) and they're #5-6 respectively. But the good news is that those two are only a single UEFA point ahead of us--things are highly compressed at this early stage--so a good week or two could easily close the gap. Matchday 2 is next week, let's hope for better news then.
Looked a little more closely at our current overall position in Europe (free riding as usual off the fine work of Bert Kassies). Portugal is now 7th overall in UEFA standings for the five-year period that determines number of teams in UEFA competitions. Teams 1-4 are well ahead, and teams 8 and below are quite a bit behind (Ukraine is closest, five points away). But given the weaker start, Portugal is now behind both France and Russia. What's kind of interesting is that we're *exactly* two points behind France and one point behind Russia. The real difference is between spots 6 and 7; the sixth place team gets six teams in Europe, the seventh only five. One might argue that this doesn't really matter that much because there aren't more than four Superliga teams that can make a major splash in European competition, so having six teams would just mean (as this year) having a weaker team dragging down our overall annual average. OTOH, having six spots assures that perennially stronger teams who have a bad year and need to qualify through lower league position have that option. But to the extent you are rooting for Portugal to have a good year, remember it's a comparative evaluation so that you should root not only for Portugal to get points but also for France and Russia to drop them.