During our Europa loss, the majority of Sportinguistas (myself included,) wanted Varandas out. Aside from all the bs that has occurred behind the scenes, he did sign Pote and Nuno Santos, who have undoubtedly been our best players this season. To top that off, we have had our best start in 5 years and are at the top of the league. My question is: do we want him to stay now? Or do we want him out?
Never understood all the hate for him. Not gonna pretend I know what is happening behind the scenes, but he inherited a shitshow left behind by the worlds worst president and has managed to undo a ton of damage that I thought would take decades. Sporting is starting to look like Sporting again - investing in youth. Still lots to be done, but what he’s managed to achieve is pretty impressive.
When we're winning everything else gets overshadowed. I'm not convinced of Varandas at all as a leader, and I have more than a gut feeling that Amorim is the one behind the signings this season, not Varandas or even Viana. But if he wins a title he'll get re-elected no problem. He won some points for standing up to PdC earlier but honestly it's probably best he doesn't talk because he usually shoots himself in the foot. Lets not forget the shambolic last season and the round robin of coaches we had. We were totally and utterly lost as a club last year. Varandas pulled an "all-in" with Amorim, even paying a ridiculous amount of money. It will be Amorim that will make or break Varandas.
isn’t that how it is supposed to work though? We saw with bdc how it works when the president makes all the signings and doesn’t consult the coach - dozens and dozens of players never even practiced with the first team. Seems smart of Varandas to allow Amorim to be involved, don’t know why you hold that against him. I also think holding the last couple seasons against him is unfair. Even this one. He was left with no squad, no money, and nothing to work with. What was supposed to happen?
It's a long season. Relax. FC Porto is coming back and in the last two weeks have been by far the best team from Portugal. Maybe wait until the end of the season? just a suggestion. Do not put the cart before the horse. Portistas know this as we are used to winning. I do agree that Pote, Santos were good signings. Even Feddal seems like a good signing. I wish Porto got Pote and Santos. Francisco Marques is also intelligently putting pressure on the referees so I do not expect Sporting to enjoy the same favors from refs moving forward.
If your gonna hold BDC accountable for bad signings, you have to hold Varandas accountable for bad signings too. Last year was a complete failure. I'm just not his biggest fan. However, I'm willing to wait things out and let him finish his term and of course if his decisions this season actually deliver a title then he deserves credit for his "all-in"
Absolutely, I hold Varandas accountable as well. But its a completely different situation. Varandas was left with no money, a club who's reputation has been destroyed, and no doubt had to work very hard to make Sporting seem like a desirable place to be. And he still signed less failures than BdC did. BdC filled a b team with old players who would never make it, ruined the youth squad, and then disbanded the b team. Varandas had to deal with all of that. To expect him to be successful last year is incredibly unfair imo.
I just think people need to let it play out a bit before going whole hog one way or the other. This club was an absolute dumpster fire when BDC was outed. I dunno where this notion came from, but I'm not sure why anyone expected things to be turned around so fast. This may be the first season where we can finally start moving forward from that stink and truly rebuilding the culture. Everything prior just seemed like desperately trying to salvage the pieces.
Recently we reported quarterly losses of 4 million euros. Mostly due to the pandemic which i can't fault him over, but also our debts to agents are staggering, around 27 million owed to many different agents... We also still have many cases of players that weren't cheap and are training alone or are loaned out and barely playing. Doumbia, Eduardo, Camacho, Ilori etc. Are not playing and no one wants to pick them up. I won't say it's been all bad and if he can somehow solve a lot of those cases I'll give him more credit.
Not being in Europe doesn't help our financial situation one bit either. Porto made roughly 60 million just from this CL season. Qualifying for CL next year is an absolute must. It's funny, the topic between BDC and Varandas are 50/50 I'd say. A lot of Sportinguistas still love BDC and hate Varandas and vice versa.
People still want this guy to step down. I can't comprehend this at all. I had my doubts about Varandas in the beginning, but he's made integral acquisitions this season that heavily impacted our title win. Pote, Santos, Adan, Neto, Amorim etc etc etc. We won the Liga for the first time in 19 years! What more do these people F***ing want?! Edit: I know Amorim had a major say in who he wanted, but we get none of these guys if Varandas doesn't sign Amorim.
One or two days of partying and we're back to normal. He was not my vote and I've criticized him, BUT just like I blamed him for the shambolic transfer window last year (who remembers Jese, Bolasie, and a 3rd guy I can't even remember being signed on the last day of the transfer window)... I can also "blame" him for this amazing season & the signing of Amorim which he took a lot of flak for (including me and most of us here). Why ask him to step down now? He has completed 3 years of his term and has a year left, let the socios vote or not for him when it's time. There are people that would rather see us lose just to get someone out rather than see us win titles and get into Champions League.
Can you imagine if he wasn’t voted back in? The guy has been phenomenal through and through. Not just for soccer, but every aspect of Sporting. Anyone who picks up the absolute gong show that BdC left behind and only three years later wins the league has my vote. His stance on the drug dealing claques etc is also a breath of fresh air. Get him out and we’re back to the same old Sporting, no trophies for 19 years until someone stable and smart enough steps in. These people complaining are just benfica cucks. They’d rather have a president focus all his efforts on complaining about benfica than actually win anything.
The media also has a hand in this - SCP gets scrutinized so much by the media but our rival's presidents have the same thing happen there. Benfica had a period of dominance both financially and but look at the criticism for LFV this year, big protests demanding his resignation. Look at how much PDC has won for Porto over almost 4 decades, and when they don't win, even he gets criticized.
The criticisms against PdC are a little tougher to understand, guy obviously has his faults but he’s arguably the greatest president of all time, across all the leagues. LFV criticisms are fair though, he’s made a lot of questionable decisions and benfica is in a pretty terrible spot financially.
I don't understand the love for BDC. Dude left Sporting in absolute shambles. Completely ruined our Academy and people still get on their knees for this guy. I don't get it. Varandas won us the title, therefore he'll always get my vote. Seems like chops would rather be miserable than be happy.
The way Varandas handled the modalities and laying off a bunch of employees was shady. But he just won us our first league title in 19 years so I'm all on board with keeping him.