steve, thanks for the link.

Sorry to be a pain but how do I select it to buy it? I keep returning to the same screen. Is it a fault with the site or is it me?!

Just checked, you've got to register on the A Bola website to be able to use the "loja".

Paulo Bento knows where his priorities lie ...

Whilst in the Algarve I looked up SC Farense in Faro. Here's their old ground, they now play at the Estadio Algarve

Just heard the second podcast, how on earth do Estrela Amadora survive on a gate of 300?

I must say I love their kit, quite similar in style to St Kilda from Aussie Rules

Estrela Amadora


St Kilda

jamzinho wrote:

QUOTE:
Just heard the second podcast, how on earth do Estrela Amadora survive on a gate of 300?

With difficulty, there was almost players' strike last season with many players 4 or 5 months behind in their wages. In previous seasons they've had teams were every player is a loanee and even now I'd estimate a large number of players in the squad are on loan or owned by 3rd parties. I'd guess that the highest paid player there probably receives no more than €500 a week. The president has good connections inside the game, most notably Rui Costa, and I guess that's how they barely survive. Add to this the TV money, the almost full houses they get when they play Sporting and Benfica, a popular Bingo hall (a major earner for all clubs in Portugal) and the fact that they have other sporting facilities like swimming pools and sports halls that bring in revenue means they get by.

Jamzinho- SC Farense doesn't look like a bad place to watch your football! Very nice!

Steve- Out of interest, how closely is the Brazilian Championship followed in the media and public? I got thinking about this when you were discussing about the lack of Russian league coverage regarding the Danny transfer.

I've seen Farense play in the old ground, which was indeed quite nice. The new one is a Euro 2004 white elephant where they get barely 10 percent of capacity. Not quite on the scale of the Attaturk in Istanbul, but still a shame.

Steveeeeeee, have you guys considered setting up an ITunes subscription facility? Would it cost you anything?

ursus, you can subsribe to our podcast on iTunes by clicking the following link: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=278729751

Matt, Brazillian football was normally shown on the Portuguese sports channel "Sport TV". But now Premier FC has come to Portugal, Sport TV no longer has the rights to show the Brazillian league. At first I thought this was brilliant because Premier FC was originally free with our cable package but it looks like the inclusion was just a taster and now they want you to pay €10 a month for it.

Previously to this, Brazillian football wasn't followed to any great degree, people would only be interested if a player a Portuguese club were chasing was playing or a player who played in Portugal was playing, especially if they're on loan from a Portuguese club (Roger/Ibson/Diego Souza). A summary of the weeks games will always be included in the sports dailies but now with the advent of Premier FC, which has a specific target audience of ex-pat Brazilians, I really believe interest in Brazilian football will die on its arse.

Overall, The Premiership rules I'm afraid, whenever a game is televised by Sport TV, every bar will show it and the people in the bar, especially the barmen, will be surprisingly more knowledgeable than most English armchair viewers about the game

Obrigado, Steveeeeeeee.

Worked like a charm. And now that it appears that SportItalia have picked up the "PortuGol" weekly highlights package, I feel fully equipped for this season.

That's also a great picture on the Itunes page.

Cheers



Estrela Amadora versus Alverca, Portuguese Liga da Honra (second division). The game was actually being played when I took the picture.

Hi all, this thread's gone a bit quiet since the season's started.

I'm just wondering whether there are any websites which show highlights of the games?

I don't mind if their in Portuguese, I follow Brazilian football quite closely and they have a site called Globo where you can pretty much watch any highlights at anytime. I don't have Sentanta so other than the podcast and the odd Champions League game, I see very little of the teams.

Anyone?

Matt, try http://www.101greatgoals.com.

Hi Matt, the best place to go is this the bwin Sapo site, which not only has the goals of every game but highlights of the big games too.
http://futebol.videos.sapo.pt/

This weekend's fixtures are all over the place, god knows when we're going to do the podcast with 2 games being played on Monday night and another being played Tuesday.

I suppose the big news at present is José Antonio Reyes, who is singlehadndedly making Benfica look better than they have in the last decade or so. Two incredible goals and performances within the last 7 days. A friend of mine who I just had lunch with compares him to Henrik Larsson at Celtic, in that Larsson was just too good for the league he was playing in. This could well be the case with Reyes, right now he seems to be in a different league to everybody else in Portugal. He's here for the year and of course, the Benfica-favouring press are going crazy at every insinuation Reyes makes that he may like to stay for longer. There's not a chance in hell it'll happen and I think Benfiquistas should just enjoy him this season and move on. He's going to win Benfica some silverwear this year, that's for sure.