Everytime you read portuguese web sites, a leader is always the headline. It's either Felipe Vieira complaining about the referees, DIas da Cunha blamig the system or Pinto da Costs starting fights with the other. meanwhile you read news from other countries and even here in teh US from the main sports and you barely see leaders having some such attention. Until the media in Portugal stops giving these people attention, our league will always be a third teir leaguw without any respect. Also just because Pinnillo secored one goal (!!!) on a 6-1 blowout, why does he gets first page honors in all newspapers??? Is this ridicolous or what???
You have a point. Also, the media likes to provoke things when the club leaders aren't doing it already.
were starting to be like italy and if we dont change then we'll be known as them to arrogant.egotistical and above standards. but its normal in every sport.
People love controversy, especially when it is one teams leader slinging mud at either a rival president or a referee or "o sistema". The sports dailies love this stuff because it sells papers. The more they see people buy their papers because of this nonsense, the more they will splash it on their front pages.
The papers in Portugal need to brake out of this love affair with the big three. Sure everyone loves a winner, but how much of the love is because those teams are the only one's being covered and reveared by the media on a daily, hell hourly bases? Everytime one of the big three loses or ties the story is about how bad they were and oh what a shame. How about giving some credit where credits do. How about a little more coverage of teams in their regions. Sure it's like this in most of europe but when you watch and EPL game, or serie A the stadiums are full regardless of who's playing, in Portugal no one cares unless Benfica, Porto, or Sporting show up. Even in Benfica and Sporting they don't sell out when lesser teams show up. It's sad and the main reason why are league can't get any credibility even though we've won European Silverware for the past two years. We have to take all our teams seriously before others do. We can't expect any other countries to hold are league in the same light as the EPL, la liga, bundesliga etc. until we give it some respect. I'm not so much talkin about those of you who post here, because alot of you recognise when a team is playing well, but the majority of Portuguese I know only recognise one team in Portugal as a legitimate team that can WIN IT ALL and it's usually who they cheer for either Porto, Benfica or Sporting.
Usually i don´t agree with what you say... but i have to agree with this, its simply ridiculous but well we are used to that its the big 3 who sell newspapers so both the big 3 and the newspapers take advantage of that.
Bottom line: $$$. That's all the papers care about. No offense to anyone, but teams like Penafiel or Setubal don't sell papers, the big 3 do. As long as there is this focus on only 3 teams, the papers will only cover these 3 teams.
Look at it this way, in Scotland does anyone care about another team other than Rangers or Celtic? And by the way How many teams have won the Scudetto in the pass 10 years? How many teams have won the EPL? It's no different, right now each league has very dominant teams and this is what the papers will focus on. The one exception is the French League, each year it seems a new team emerges, not just PSG, but Marseille, Monaco. etc...
Thanks for mentioning them, for me it is one of the most exciting leagues to watch, not to much publicity but very exciting soccer. Most of the top half of their teams do have a legitimate shot at the title. It is also great to see when a big money club like PSG doesn't do too well. (Sorry Pauleta)
I agree with you on the fact that every league will always have a dominant group of team However when you look at the coverage of the media they don't just concentrate on the Elite group. they spread it around so that all teams get coverage. both front page and back page. The other problem that I noticed is that local newpapers, don't providre alot of coverage to the sports field.
That's a great point, the local paper in Caldas da Rainha (Gazzetta das Caldas) probably only devotes 2 pages to sports. While most of the citizens are sports crazed junkies like myself. Thus you buy 2 papers each morning: "Correio da Manha" and "A Bola". Or if you are disinterested in current events you just buy the "Record" and "A Bola".
The French league has teams like Metz and Lens that both won the Championship in the last decade. That's why I like watching their games. Anything can happen. They also have one of the most hated rivalries in the sport, PSG VS Marseille. North VS South. They hate each other with a passion.