at least we have real "acções" in the Stock Market, unlike some people who use what they don't have as collateral for their debt!
So, if I go to your house, murder you, but there's no camera recording; I never came to your house? It's like the age-old, "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to see it, does it make a noise?" question. Just because the camera didn't record his face doesn't mean squat. Now, if Porto had an attendance of about 3,000 per game, then I could see an arguement being made based on the camera. But, until then, it's pretty fricken damn hard to pick someone out of 40,000 people.
problem is, Aveirenses, every time Scolari goes to a Sporting, Benfica or any other game, the FPF makes a formal announcement before hand notifying the general public and the media about his presence in a given game. Not one time that has been done for a Scolari trip to the Dragao... what does that tell you?
It tells me what I knew before. That there are extremely poor relations between the FPF and Porto. If it wasn't done one time, then it could well-be that they didn't do it ten times.
I just can't believe how upset some people are with Scolari. When was the last time Portugal had this kind of success in an international competition? '66? Who cares that he hasn't been to Dragao? You can watch players without being at the stadium. And do we already forget what happened in '02, when Oliveira had his old players from Porto playing a prominent role? J. Costa, Couto, Baia, etc. Yeah, that worked out well.
If you come to my house I'll rip your fvcking arm from its socket and whack you across the head with it. Of course it makes a noise, what are you, crazy?! I spotted my brother in law in the Estadio da Luz when Portugal played Estonia for the last qualifying game for the 2002 WC (true story - we got separated in the subway going for the stadium)! And it was 80.000 people there! What makes it so freaking hard to spot a bald brasilian?
I am quite sure that Ferreirajl, Chopsoccerdude, and all of the other Portistas will tell you that it was the Porto's players that caused an early return trip from WC02...they will blame JVP, Beto, Figo, Rui Costa...etc... They will cleverly leave out the other defenders (Couto, Costa) who were burned by the USA, and Korean Forwards...and will give kudos to Baia for "keeping us in games"...balderdash, and poppycock... Scolari if in fact hasn't been to the Dragao and lied about it...So What? Does it make him any less of a coach? Come on guys...he doesn't take any BS and isn't afraid to set the players straight...(Remember the Figo and C. Ronaldo incidents...when the were pouting about not playing, etc) You can say that he made mistakes in the first Euro game against Greece with regards to the starting lineup...but he was man enought to admit it and make radical changes including benching the captain (Couto) tell me another coach that would have done that....
When was the last time we played an international competition at home? I don't really remember '82 but EURO 2000 was nice. I only care that he says he's been there 10 times when we all know he wasn't. Your attempt to put that fiasco exclusively on Porto players is just plain stupid. I won't dignify that with an answer.
You guys keep going away from the objective of this thread... Why can't he be man enough to admit he's never been to the Dragao??!! That's all we're asking of him. Why LIE? That's the question. No one is questioning his picks, his game plans, the results thereof.... just asking: Why is he lying? Geez, no need to defend the man w/ posts of him getting us to the Finals; I'm sorry but I credit the team more than his coaching skills, but again, that is not what is on debate in this thread... And BTW JuveLeo, I prefer to point the finger at that Lampiao Nulo Gomes for missing that wide open opportunity to tie the score agains South Korea... remember that???
Not to mention Conceicao's miss and Figo hitting the post towards the end...not bad for a team playing with 9 against a quick and motivated South Korea...to this day I watch the video of that game and even though Portugal lost 1-0 I look at that game as a good example of never giving up and leaving everything on the field....lady luck was just not on our side... Not to mention a crappy Ref who got what he deserved from JVP.. I have seen tackles in WC games far worse than that one and no card was issued at all...never mind a direct red...WTF was he thinking... Oh yeah...South Korea playing at home...yeah they should win...because FIFA needs to develop Soccer in Asia... That is just my rational for dealing with that lose...but let's stay on topic... Scolari should not lie about not ever attending a game at the Dragao...
It was still a great achievement to reach the final, even though the loss in the final was heartbreaking. That's the thing, we don't know that he wasn't. I'm not putting it exclusively on Porto players. But we can agree that Oliveira's selection was flawed. And part of that flaw was that he relied on Porto players he was familiar with, not to mention that he apparently never did any scouting on the US team.
After an extensive search through the Dragao security camera's Scolari was caught in the stadium at one of his "many" appearances there:
Because the Portistas are so blind by PDC that they cant see any wrong by this guy.... Porto comes 1st ,than country comes 2nd .....Talk about being fanatics.....
--»Figo was crap he played injuried, Oliveira had no balls to let him on the bench, when he had Capucho or even Pedro Barbosa at better form, Beto was uselless like he always is when he plays for the NT, JVP was a clown and ruined our chances of getting at least a point against South Korea, Couto and Jorge Costa failed on the first game, on hte others they were good. --»So what? the guy makes a fool of everybody and you say so what?! If he had problems with Benfica and Sporting and said the smae thing i am just seeing the headlines of Bola and Record... --»He did waht everyone was asking months ago, everyone could see Ricardo Carvalho was so much better than Couto, Deco was better than Rui Costa, Nuno Valente was alot better than Rui Jorge etc etc Nuno Gomes saved our arse against Spain, Ricardo saved our arse against England, Holland was easy, and the real test, the final (the 3 game Scolari and the NT made against Greece) we failed again to beat them. So whats new? Humberto Coelho (who i didn´t liked much) and like Ferreirajl said put us playing fantastic football, only didn´t reached the final of the Euro 2000 because IMO at the time we faced the best NT of the world (France), António Oliveira despite being an arseh*le qualified us to the WC 2002 in a group with Holland and Ireland...but he didn´t had any control on the big stars (Couto, Figo, Rui Costa, Vitor Baía, Paulo Sousa) and that was why we were eliminated, not to mention the ridiculous preparation we did in Macau... The truth is besides the flag waving and the patriotic feeling Scolari didn´t added much to what we already had. Hoppefully we will qualify to the WC and reach at least the last 8, with the current team(best defense we ever had...excluding the GK...), great midifield and some good strikers we probably have one of the best NTs ever.
Only Baía didn´t deserved to start in Japan/Korea, Jorge Costa and Fernando Couto were considered the best central defenders we had, they were one of the best duo during the Euro 2000, and despite what Oliveira did to Ricardo, i want to remember you what was the guy that was always there to save our arse on the last 10 to 12 years...yes it was Vítor Baía...we simply didn´t had anyone who could match Baía quality, even now we don´t have... but thats another story...
You made some good points right up untill the Beto is always crap part...do you remember his first appearance for the NT. Well I do, it was against Germany, and he was the best player on the field....and at the WC he was asked to play RB because of a lack of a better option thus enabling the tired Porto CB's Couto and Costa to play, when Beto should have been starting not to mention Andrade. He is not making fun of anybody, Portistas feel slighted only because Baia is not on the team... This is revisionists history, because prior to the Euro no one was questioning his lineups...and had Portugal Beat Greece in the first game, we still might not know who Carvalho is...Granted Couto's time has come and gone and Carvalho is a worthy replacement, but no one was making huge overtures to have him in the lineup... This is nonesense...in 02 aside from a few injuries and taking the incorrect GK (at the time Ricardo was in much better form than Baia) he took the the best players. What can be criticized is the way the team prepared and the lack of good game tactics... Too often he switched the lineup and he had no consistency... And my final point to all the Scolari bashers...he has tranformed what was historically a defensive minded team into an attacking team...can anyone remember Oliveira almost blowing qualification to WC02 by playing defensively in the last game against Holland. It wasn't until Portugal was down 0-2 that they started attacking and managed to tie the game thanks to a late penalty shot by Figo... Ok so he hasn't made it to the Dragao...big Fucking deal...get over it...it's not that nice a stadium
More nonsense....but I am not going to start another Baia is done thread...this one is about Scolari... And like I wrote in my previous post Beto should have started of over Costa in the middle of the defense...
thanks to JuveLeo, we now know why Scolari won't go anywhere near the Dragao: He won't go to a stadium that doesn't have any Green or Red on it (makes perfect sense, NT colors)!
Why would you? After the WC2002 the only thing Baia won was 2 Portuguese Titles, 1 Portuguese Cup, 2 Portuguese SuperCups, 1 UEFA Cup, 1 Champions League, 1 InterContinental Cup; darn it... I'm tired of typing !
My only concern is that most of you seem like you want to go back to the dark ages of past Portuguese National Team History... A history which aside from 66 only includes 2 other WC appearances...and includes a team that quit in Mexico and for yrs played like the much talked about Greek team that we all hate... We now play the beautiful game, and for the most part our NT coach calls up the deserving players...heck he even calls up players most of us haven't heard of....
You Portistas are Hilarious...yeah...Baia is the only reason they won those titles Beleive me with that coach and some of those players...you could have had Hilario or Nuno in the net and they would have won...
I'm not denying that Baia wasn't our best keeper for a number of years. As for Couto and J. Costa, it's definitely a valid argument that they were the best CD's we had. I think it was more a case of poor scouting on Oliveira's part. The biggest advantages the US and S. Korea had against Portugal was their speed up front. It was for that reason that they shouldn't have started, not their overall quality.