Are Ovrebo and Nebben WC worthy?

I would have liked to restart this blog talking about the Olympics that are on in Vancouver, about the wonderful bronze medal that youngster Pittin won (not as unexpectedly as almost all people think here in Italy) in the Nordic Combined or about Zoeggler's fifth medal in as many OG, or about Maddy Neuner first Olympic gold, but taoday football takes the spotlight.

For everyone who has watched the Bayern Munchen - Fiorentina game earlier tonight the referee and the linesman (mr. Nebben) have been - to summarize their behavior on the pitch in one word - awful. There is probably only one person in the stands that will not recognize this and he's Michel Platini.

The UEFA boss will say that everyone can make mistakes and that Ovrebo still deserves to be trusted despite all his current and past errors (ask any Chelsea fans on the subject and they'll find plenty of expletives on this matter. What I'm curious to read tomorrow on the papers is his reactions and eventual comments on the two big mistakes that sent the match down his eventual path, because both have come from decisions taken (and not taken) by one of the linesmen, Mr. Dag Roger Nebben, a 29-y-o who earlier today seemed overwhelmed by his role in the game and decided that while Bayern is a top team Fiorentina is not.

During the 73rd minute Robben threw himself against Gobbi near the sideline on the right and then went down with his hand over his throat. Was it a foul? No, Robben threw himself against the opposing player. So why did mr. Nebben tell the ref to show the red card to Gobbi for elbowing? But this was the lesser evil of the two.

89th minute: there is a shot from outside the area that Frey can only push away, a Bayern player heads it back towards the box where Klose is alone. Why is Klose alone there 7 meters from the goal? Easy; he was 3 meters, THREE METERS(!) offside when the ball was played towards him.

So what did Mr. Nebben do?

You got it! Nothing at all, his flag stayed down and the goal stood for the final 2-1 scoreline for Bayern in the first leg of the round of 16.

To add on this: Ovrebo, in the 78th minute only booked Klose for a terrible late tackle on Felipe that anywhere in the world, even in Scotland or England not only on the continent, would have been a clear red card (and at least a couples of games off). If you've watched the game you could clearly see that Klose immediately turned towards Ovrebo with a face that said: "ok, I did it...just send me off 'cause is deserved". But inexplicably he only saw a yellow card come out - much to his relief as seen on the images on tv.

So, after knowing that Martin Hansson will be one of the referees chosen for the coming World Cup in South Africa despite his unbelievable error to favor another top team in the paly-off last autumn, will football fans have to witness not only Mr. Ovrebo but also and in particularMr. Nebben being present on the pitch down south instead of refereeing and honing their skills during the summer in their own country's league?

I definitvely hope not.

But I fear that most football fans know all too well how the politics of Uefa work.

Writing Nonsense

Yesterday morning as I was browsing through the NY Times during a break at work I stumbled into this piece written by Rob Hughes in which he claimed that the Inter - Barcellona scoreless draw on Wednesday was far less entertaining than the S. Liege - Arsenal game.

He started saying that: "Goals, it’s true, do not by themselves denote quality. But they are the purpose of the game" making here a normal mistake for many american soccer wannabes. He then went on calling "Rubbish" Mourinho's explanations that the game had been a tactical war between him and Guardiola aknowledging the superiority - at this point - of the Barcelona team. For Hughes the S. Liege team "sent the fans home with the knowledge that they tried, they dared to take on superior foes, and they just ran out of stamina and luck in the end" while implicity saying that Inter and Barcelona fans, plus the billions of soccer/football fans worldwide should and/or would have gone home or turned off their TVs disappointed because of the scoreless draw and because the "inferior" team didn't fought to its death to score.

I can assure Mr. Hughes though that reality is a lot different from the representation he tried to give. While it can be comprehensible that the Belgian fans may have been in delight 5 minutes into the game, I can confirm to him (after hearing an acquaintance of mine who was at the stadium in Liege on Wednesday) that all of the S. Liege supporters would have given an arm to sneak home with a 1-0 nothing boring win than witnessing their team go down that way.

The same is true for the Inter - Barcelona game (that I witnessed as a neautral spectator being a fan of Udinese and Osasuna). On Thursday I spoke with a dozen people who were in San Siro and every one of them was thrilled for the game they saw; every one of them had no problems in admitting that the Barcelona side was superior to theirs as far as attacking was concerned, but they were on Cloud 9 for the adrenaline and the emotions that the match gave them on Wednesday night.

They could clearly recall their feelings at seeing Ibrahimovic wearing a different shirt, a friend of mine recalled cutting abruptly a call to his girlfriend because of a Messi drive towards Inter's goal, my friend sitting next to me at his house was cursing both assistant referees for another offside wrongly signalled.

The game may have been scoreless but I challenge Mr. Hughes to find a man who saw both games (in Liege and Milan) and that would choose Arsenal's win over Inter-Barcelona's hard fought draw, a battle on the pitch where in the end there were no winners and losers. Not a game for the ages but definitively one more worth remembering than a 2-3 game played in Belgium.

The Express before the Rise

The first week of this year's Vuelta ended the way it began, with Cancellara in the golden jersey. The Bern Express regain the leader's symbol today in a rainy Valencia winning by a large margin the second ITT of the race. He did so riding an almost carbon-copy race of the ITT he won at the Tour: he started slowly, did an impressive middle part distancing beyond reach every other competitor and finished strongly but not as strongly as in the earlier part of the race.

The most impressive rider in this first week has been without a doubt André Greipel, the German rider of Columbia-HTC won two stages (one after an amazing crash less than 3 kms from the finish line) in a row and weared the golden jersey into today's stage. Another rider who has been strong in this first week has been Vacansoleil's Slovenian sprinter Borut Bozic who was consistent in the Top 10 in the bunch sprints and who took Stage 6 as his first ever Grand Tour stage. Slightly disappointing has been Daniele Bennati instead (at least for me), with the Liquigas rider never finding his groove in the bunch sprints so far.

As far as the GC riders are concerned, the situation is pretty interesting. Cadel Evans leads the way, 1 minute and 12 seconds behind Cancellara, with a two seconds advantage on Piti Valverde and eight on Samuel Sanchez. Fulgsang, who is in 21st position so far, is only 51 secs behind Evans, and ahead of him we find riders such as Basso, Gerdemann, Vinokourov and Zubeldia. So I do believe that we're in for an interesting stage tomorrow, the first mountain stage of the Vuelta.

Tomorrow the race will arrive on the Categoria Especial Alto de Aitana, after the riders already went up and down seven times (four category 2 climbs and three category 3). It's a stage well suited for a long early breakaway while the leaders won't try anything before the last climb is well under way. The stage will not be decisive as far as the GC is concerned, and I won't be surprised to see a small group of 6-8 riders arrive together atop the Alto de Aitana.

I do certainly hope to be wrong and that already from the foot of the climb we'll see fireworks from the favorites, but I doubt this will happen.

The Rumbling of the Mountain

For many years Dinara Safina has been only "Marat's little sister", living in the shade of her slam-winning older brother. Now the situation has been reversed with 29-year-old Marat on the verge of retiring from the game and 23-year-old Dinara clinging on WTA N.1's ranking spot for most of the year.

The two siblings couldn't be more similar in physical apparency and different as far as mental strength is concerned. Marat has always been subjected to highs and lows, a fact that made him so unpredictable that you sat in the stands or in front of the TV and asked yourself which Marat was going to play that day, the slam-winning one or the one capable of losing to a man who had never before defeated a top-50 guy. Dinara, on the other, hand is almost certainly less talented than her brother (and probably of some of her opponents on the WTA circuit), but she has two characteristics that allow her to make amends for her slightly lower talent: consistency and resiliency.

As far as the first is concerned, she has shown of being capable of reaching at least the Semifinals in all four slam tournaments: this year she has reached 8 finals, winning three (2 o clay and 1 on hard surface), and lost twice more in the semis (both on grass). She may have yet to win a slam but f.e. this year she has twice been the runner up and reached the semifinal in the other.

Talking about her resiliency, I had the chance to witness it last night during her first round match at the US Open against teenage aussie Olivia Rogowska that she eventually won 6-7 6-2 6-4. After gifting her opponent the first set - and Dinara did exactly that failing to exploit the chances she had in the 12th game and in the tie break and eventually committing a couple of crucial errors - she came back strongly in the second set despite an almost non-existent serve. Once Rogowska started to play in the third set like she did in the first, Dinara found herself twice in the hole, at 0-2 and 2-4: in the former the aussie even had the chance to climb up to 3-0, a risk that Dinara avoided thanks to a couple of wonderful plays. The key game was the 9th, on Rogowska's serve, when the two girls battled for almost 15 mins exchanging some good plays and some not unforced but really horrible errors due to fatigue, tiredness and the heat.

The decisive turning point of the game came when Rogowska came down to the net and tried three times, unsuccesfully, to claim the advantage only to see Dinara unlash a perfect backhand that curled away from the aussie and landed a couple of inches inside the left-side line of Rogowska's court. From there Dinara went on to claim the last 6 points of the game breaking for 5-4 and then taking advantage of 3 unforced errors by her opponent in the 10th game of this 3-set marathon.

It was a game that if it had featured her brother I could have easily predicted as a Marat's loss (despite admitting that he's my favorite player in the ATP circuit because of his unpredictability and capacity to entertain), but with Dinara on the court I was certain she'd be able to find a way to cope with it because of her resiliency (despite her two first round losses this year in minor tournaments).

Now she will meet Kristina Barrois of Germany in the second round - the German is ranked 67th in the singles ranking - with a chance to meet Barrois's doubles partner Tathiana Garbin in the third round, if the Italian will defeat Czech Petra Kvitova.

City Domination, for 18 more games

Despite vowing to myself that I'd refrain to talk about big time football but since the only sports event I was able to catch up in the last couple of days was the Milan derby (and since I'm working in Milan at the moment) I'm going to write a couple of paragraphs on how it went and why.

Wel, first of all I guess everyone knows what the final score was, and I might say that only over-enthusiastic Milan fans or people who do not follow Italian football could have expected Inter to lose this game. Last week's results could have led some people to believe that Inter was not the team to beat and that Milan had finally found some groove after its disastrous pre-season. The problem is that Mourinho got what he wanted (Snejider) and was finally able to bench the useless armchair called Vieira this week. The Inter side was also able to exploit and show to everyone who still hadn't got it (like its President, who never gets anything) Milan's weaknesses: the wings. Especially on the right side Maicon and Eto'o did whatever they wanted and all the first three goals came from attacks down that side.

I won't be in the office tomorrow, but I do believe that the minority of Inter fans will send plenty of emails to the majority Milan fans (with us neutrals as cc) with jokes and trash talk. The Milan Derby is something that is strongly felt throughout the city, something enhanced by the fact that football is the official religion of Italy.

On a different note, mixed results for the teams I support during this weekend. To quote just a few:
- wins for Man City, NAC and Istra Pula
- draws for Osasuna, Bodo/Glimt and Keflavik
- losses for my beloved TPS (on ET in the Cup), Udinese and Belenenses (both 3-1s away); plus for Hannover 96

Something Different

Today I won't be writing about someone else's effort or a high (or medium) profile team. Today I'm gonna describe the climb that I rode on my 19 years old and 20kgs heavy MTB.

I climbed the 20 kms from the town of Auronzo (864 mts on the sea level) to the Pearl of the Dolomites, the beautiful Misurina at the foot of the climb towards the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Here you can see what kind of scenery I had before my eyes when I collapsed on a bench completely spent:


It was a wonderful day for a ride and the first 12 kms until the resort of Palù San Marco (1125mts), where the Italian National Sky Team - or at least part of it - is having one of its summer camps, went smoothly despite my being completely out of form due to the sedentary job I have actually got. The road went gently upward until there but after that...

After Palù San Marco you have a couple of kms where the road hit an almost steady 6% crescent to 1250mts and ten you pass a sign or your right that read: 12% crescent ahead. My legs (who already rode 15kms in the morning) started to tell me "please, can we go home please?" to which I replied stubbornly that I wanted to climb higher. My pace slowed there and I almost never got above 10km/h again until Misurina.

The final 6 kms feature some breathtaking scenery with Mount Sorapis on your left and the Mount Cristallo (Crystal) right in front of you. And you know that at km 135 of the National Road 48 you'll find the junction that will take you to the Tre Croci pass if you turn left (it last featured in the Giro in 2007), but when you look to your right at the sign you're still at km 138,700 and you're still at the Hotel Cristallo where some of the paths leading into the Mount Sorapis begin.

I admit I couldn't do it all in one go, I had to take 3 breaks before climbing back on the bike to push it higher and higher, but the satisfaction on seeing the old hospital for asthmatic kids first (even though the slope was still going up at 7%) and finally the lake was wonderful. I reached my goal, took a picture of the scenery and sent it to a Dutch sports journalist who's a good friend of mine to tell him: "next time you come to Italy remember that the Dolomites are waiting for you" and I finally got my teeth on the sandwich I brought with me.

For the ones that feel bol enough to keep climbing after reaching Misurina there is always the road that leads up to the Rifugio Auronzo and the Tre Cime probably the most gruesome climb I've ever did (only once, back in 1997 and 10 kgs ago).

The descent back to Auronzo is a technical one until Palù San Marco, and I was unlucky since I found a damned Mondeo ahead of me that either couldn't drive or was the first time he did that road (I vote for the former). Luckily I could overcome him after 3kms and I was then able to hit 70km/h in one of the few straights before Palù San Marco. From then on it was like riding through butter with some of my strenght back courtesy of the cheese sandwich.

Right now my legs are killing me, but I feel nonetheless satisfied. The forecast for tomorrow is grim looking but if it's wrong and it doesn't rain I'll do another 20+ kms loop around Mount Rusiana.

Vuelta Preview

It’s about time for the last of the Big Tours to start. The Vuelta a España will start its 64th edition Saturday in the Assen circuit in Holland, the first time ever that the race begins outside the Iberian Peninsula. So the third major stage race of the year has decided to follow the footsteps of Giro and Tour in order to increase its visibility outside Spain.


The parcours this year is probably the most exciting of the three Big Tours, since I personally think that both Giro and Tour organizers could have done much better and provide us with more exciting races and stages. There are 3 ITTs for a total of just over 60kms and 5 mountain top finishes plus many other climbs and descents along the way. So if the contenders are game we may be in for some real fun.

Contenders we say, so who are they? The major headlines and a lot of the public’s interest are leaning towards the comeback of the great felon: Alexander Vinokourov. The Kazakh will be aching to show that he is still what he used to be (maybe even without external help) and that he can still race at the top level at 35 years of age and after a two-year ban.

Without last year’s top 3 finishers a favourite by default has to be Ezequiel Mosquera who finished fourth last year and would like to work on that result in order to climb up the podium, which would be a fantastic result for his Xacobeo-Galicia team, who were invited also to the Giro but performed poorly. Two other Spanish riders who will do their best to win it all are Alejandro Valverde and Samuel Sanchez, with the former that will try to avoid his customary day off that never allowed him to be a real contender in a 3-week race, while the latter will try to finish in the top 3 and also to arrive in top shape at the World Champ in Mendrisio which can well be perfectly suited for him.

A rider who will want to avenge a terrible season in Cadel Evans, since the aussie wants to put his horrible Tour behind him and have a strong Vuelta to show his team owners that he’s still in his prime and only had a (very) disappointing July. Another rider with something to prove, in his case that he can be a contender in a 3-week race and not only in shorter ones, is young Robert Gesink: the Dutchman will lead the Rabobank team in the Vuelta, which as said above starts in Holland this year.

The Saxo Bank team fields on paper a very strong side with the two Schlecks and youngster Fulgsang their spearheads. I sincerely doubt that both Andy and Frank will try to win the Vuelta; my opinion is that they will instead use the Vuelta as warm up for Mendrisio, where they can both be serious contenders. We can use almost the same exact words for Damiano Cunego with the Italian more focused on trimming his physical condition for the WC than on the Vuelta itself (and here I do believe he should focus more on becoming the next Bettini instead of stubbornly try to win another Grand Tour since he’s not gonna do it, but we’ll talk about that in another occasion).

The Liquigas team can be already happy of their season so far, with Pellizzotti finishing third in the Giro and winning the Polka-dot jersey at the Tour, Basso making his comeback to finish 5th in the Giro, Nibali and Kreuziger looking good for the whole Tour. Now Basso has stated that he’ll be a contender in the Vuelta, and I do hope for him that he’ll be; there are better chances for him now than he had in the Giro since now he’s more accustomed to racing while before the Giro he didn’t have much chance to race in order to get back the feeling of it that a rider needs. He’ll we helped (or he will help) the young Czech Roman Kreuziger that after more ups than downs at the Tour would love to prove that he can ride two top level Big Tours in the same season.

So, Saturday the bikes will roll in one of motorsports’ temples, with the Bern Express Cancellara in pole position to take the lead. The first hard mountaintop finish will be on the 8th stage atop the Alto de Aitana, but also in earlier stages (the one in Liége and the two in Spain before the ITT) we could be in for some real treats. Now it’s up to the riders to show that the organizers’ choices were right and that this race can be more exciting than this year’s Giro and Tour.

If I was to make a prediction I's say for the top 3:

- Evans

- Basso

- Mosquera

but not necessarily in that order.

A Home Debut With Many Firsts

The diving header is one of the most exciting way to score a goal in football, it takes timing, decision and bravery since sometimes you don’t know where other people’s foot might be – and it can happen that they’ll land exactly on your face. Yesterday’s match against Naval 1° Maio was instead decided by a play that you seldom see on a football pitch: the “diving chester”.

The newly signed Cameroonian striker Yontcha threw himself in the air, in my opinion badly misjudging the time of the dive, and with a spectacular chest movement netted the ball for the first Belenenses’ goal of the season. Yontcha was also instrumental for the set up of the second goal, when he received the ball from right-back Mano and crossed the ball that Ivan Santos left-footed into the net for the final goal of Belenenses 2 – 0 win against Naval.

The win is the first ever at home against Naval for the Azuis (and I have crystal clear memories of that horrible scoreless draw back in October 2006 that had been my first ever game at the Estàdio do Restelo) and avenged last March’s 1-2 defeat that sent Belenenses deep into the downward spiral that led towards relegation.

The game was a two-faced one: it was terrible, to say the least in the first half, with both teams focused more on preventing their opponent from scoring than on build dangerous attacks. Naval was probably the better team throughout the half, but they never managed to pose real threats for Nélson. The Belenenses’ defensive line proved to be rock solid for the second game in a row despite having a former midfielder at right back (Mano) and a 19 y.o. youngster at left back (André Pires).

The second half of the game developed differently from the first especially after Fredy, who was active but in a Denilson mid-‘90s style until then (read: useless), skipped past his man on the right side of the area and crossed the ball to Yontcha who scored in that unusual way. The game sped up after the tie was broken but Naval’s reaction was sterile and fruitless with Belenenses attending their opponents in their own 25m ready to counter-attack. A funny and frustrating event occurred in the 74th minute when the referee, instead of focusing on the game, booked centre back Rodrigo Arroz while the player was outside the pitch waiting to re-enter the contest. Even the – boring and not-so-competent Portuguese commentators were surprised by this decision and said that the ref should have focused on the play instead of doing such a theatrical act.

The only real scare for Belenenses came in the 88th minute when a freekick from the edge of area was sent inches above the bar by Diego Ângelo. Moreover, three minutes later Mano came out of his own half with the ball, timed perfectly his forward pass down the right side for Yontcha who then centered the ball where another new signing, Ivan Santos, one-timed it into the net to put an end to the ballgame.

This season has then, so far, started very differently than the last one, and Belenenses was able to capitalize on the chance of getting immediately a win on their home debut (while last year we had to thank Rodrigo Arroz whose 95th minute goal evened the score against Paços de Ferreira). It’ll be fundamental for this young Belenenses side to win as many games as possible against fellow mid-table contenders such as Naval in order to, firstly, have a quite and sufferance-free campaign (something that we fans would love after last year’s struggles) and, secondly, who knows maybe aim higher.

Next game will be Sunday in Braga against a strong Sporting Braga side which won its first two matches. I’d personally be more than happy to come out of the pitch with a point, something that can be possible if the Azuis keep playing like they did in the second half of the game yesterday.

The Confirmation of New Phenomena

In Berlin everyone was talking about the Usain "Ich Bin Ein Berlino" Bolt sensation thanks to his 3 gold medals and the two impressive world records in the 100 and 200 meters earlier this week

but the Jamaican has not been the only phenomenon to confirm the impressive results and achievements done in the recent past.

Among them I'd like to single out Andreas Thorkildsen,

the Norwegian javelin thrower who doubled last year's olympic gold winning today's competition pretty easily, I might say. Now he has become the first athlete to become the reigning European, World and Olympic champion in the discipline, something that not even the great Jan Zelezny has ever achieved. It's true that the man who could have been his closest rival (and who is my personal favorite since he comes from the small finnish twon where my brother spent his AFS year in high school) went through a terrible week: Tero Pitkamaki first suffered from flu and than had to be hospitalized this morning because of an ear infection and nevertheless managed to finish 5th: but Thorkildsen was impressive in the way he did throw the 89.59m that granted him the win with a margin of more than 3 meters on the cuban runner up.

Thorkildsen threw the distance almost with ease, saving his best two throws of the year for the clutch moment - he had been beaten more than once by Pitkamaki this year in the Golden League circuit - of the entire season. Impressive was the fact that he made this sensational throw appear almost like a training throw because he didn't show any hint of fatigue during the run up, during and after the throwing motion. After watching his effort I focused on the other contenders and you could see that they were giving all they had in the tanks, or even something more in the case of Guillermo Martinez who showed that not only the female Cubans can be top level javelin throwers, but Thorkildsen appeared like he could still go a meter further if the situation called for it. An impressive show of power and the demonstration that he's so self-confident of his strength that all the other contenders had no chances today.

This throw earned him, as I said the "Triple Crown", an achievement that prove his consistency when the throw counts over a 3 year period, a crown that he'll try to confirm next year, when the European Championships will be staged in Barcelona. So good luck for it Andreas in the hope that Tero will be finally healthy and ready to challenge you in a major event.

Unflushables

The last five years have been a rollercoaster ride for C.F. Os Belenenses fans like myself, with the team getting relegated twice and twice being rescued because of other teams' troubles, financials or judiciaries.

The 2004-2005 season saw Belenenses finish in a comfortamble mid-table position (9th) 12 points clear of relegation, with Gabonese striker Henry Antchouet finishing fifth in the goal scorers classification.

The 2005-2006 season saw a struggling Belenenses' side finish fourth from bottom because of a worst score in games played against Academica Coimbra and Naval, who finished even on points with the Azuis. But despite the reduction of teams in the top flgiht from 18 to 16 which meant that 4 teams were getting relegated that year, Belenenses maintained its spot in the Portuguese Superliga thanks to what became the Caso Mateus, the scandal that sent Gil Vicente down into the Liga de Honra allowing the Azuis to avoid relegation.

The 2006-2007 season has been probably the most spectacular and gratifying for the Belenenses supporters in more than 15 years (and was directly followed by yours truly throughout the runs in the league and the Cup). With Jorge Jesús at the helm the Belenenses players, after a shaky start, blended wonderfully together and lead by Silas, Zé Pedro and Dady reached the Portuguese Cup Final (with highlights being a come-from-behind 2-1 victory away at Bragança in the quarterfinals and an epic extra-time victory against Sporting Braga in the semifinal) and finished 5th in the league one point shy of fourth place. The Portuguese Cup final, played in the Estadio Nacional, saw Sporting Lisbon claim a 1-0 win with a late goal from Liedson thanks to a Pedro Proença's decision not to allow Cândido Costa (Belenenses' full-back) back on the pitch after medication and before the decisive corner kick.

There were high expectations for the 2007-2008 season, but the team underperformed and was yet again involved in a scandal, this time on the losing side, when they signed Cameroonian striker Meyong on loan from Levante and played him in the Liga, officially unaware that the player had already seen action with two different teams that season hence being ineligible to play for a third under FIFA rules. For this reason Belenenses was deducted 3 points in the table and finished 8th, yet again one point below Sporting Braga, but this time this single point meant that Belenenses was out of Europe, with the minhotos claiming the last available spot.

The 2007-2008 season didn't see only the Meyong affair, but also the final word on the Apito Dourado one, which involved the (attempted or actual) bribery of referees by the Porto's teams, F.C. Porto and Boavista, with the former being penalized 6 points in the table and the latter being relegated to the Liga de Honra despite finishing 10th in the table.

The 2008-2009 season was even more frustrating than the 2005-2006 one, since Belenenses played well below its potential, changed the manager twice in 28 matches and let good chances of avoiding relegation slip between its fingers too many times conceding points in games where they could have easily gotten the win or at least draws. The team finished 15th out of 16 teams with 34 points and was hence relegated. But once again something happened, this time closer to Lisbon where Estrela Amadora was having serious financial troubles and the Portuguese Federation in the end rejected the suburbs' team inscription to the Superliga hence giving the guys from Belém another shot in the big show.

The 2009-2010 season kicked off last week and Belenenses earned a good point away in Matosinhos against a good Leixões team that finished in the top half of the table last season. The Azuis had to thank their new goalkeeper Nélson, who plays with number 3 and comes ironically from the Estrela Amadora team that allowed Belenenses to avoid being relegated, who made a crucial one-on-one save in the 69th minute.

This year Belenenses has a new manager, João Carlos Pereira, and a team that is fairly young compared to other teams in the Superliga despite the latest acquisition (33yo central defender Beto) being one that goes for experience rather than youth.

Tomorrow this new Belenenses team will make its home debut against Naval at 21.15 CEST, a game that I'll try to watch through a stream and then comment on here.