Dear friends from Liverpool. It's time to drop Porto's pants.
Fabio Paim is the Messiah
Hello, I'm André, from Portugal, I'm not a Liverpool supporter, but
taking into account that I hate Manchester United I guess I am a
little bit of a sympathizer with the boys from Anfield. Plus, Robert
Carlyle was pretty cool in "Formula 51".
I'm not a Porto supporter but being Portuguese of course I'm proud of
the great team Porto had in the last 2 seasons and make no mistake it
was indeed a fantastic team.
That Porto was a lesson of football's ABC, Porto was a team with a
fantastic defence and magnificent midfield and it was of a simplicity
that should enlighten those (the Dutch) who make football out to be
rocket science, it was all so simple, ball possession, when did not
have ball possession they would go after it, when having it they knew
how to pass it around efficiently, a good team has the ball, controls
the ball and knows how to hide the ball, a bad team has the ball and
feels the need to pass it quickly even if it mean badly. Mourinho's
team is built on ball possession and knowing just when to let it go
and to whom and this was demonstrated by the fabulous midfield which
always counted on Deco, Maniche and Costinha.
Porto was built on an handful of key players; the brain Deco, the
workhorse Maniche, the midfield pendulum Costinha, the tireless
inspirational leader Derlei Silva and world class right-back Paulo
Ferreira but above all else the true pillar of Porto was Ricardo
Carvalho who is quite simply the best central defender in the world
today and the irreplaceable José Mourinho who simply is heads and
shoulders above any manager in the world today. Tactics,
substitutions, pre-game preparation, psychological warfare, you name
it, nobody touches Mourinho in any of those, it takes a little bit of
time but eventually he gets players to play his way and believe me
Chelsea will eventually be finishing games with a lot more ball
possession than the opposition and make wise choices in ball passing.
So, Porto was a great team right? Absolutely, some might think it was
a fluke and will be putting Porto under the magnifying glass this
season breathlessly waiting for the flop to occur and to say "I told
you so, it was nothing but a fluke". No, it was the real deal and
Porto just finished it's season a few months ago so surely we will see
another great Porto in Europe in the very near future?
Afraid not and hopefully this will not take away from what Porto's
recent accomplishments but Porto is not going to be the same because
the winning infrastructure of Porto has simply been altered too much
in the past 2 months to survive.
Deco has left for Barça, Paulo Ferreira for Chelsea, promising
midfielder Pedro Mendes for Tottenham and the club has made in excess
of 75 million Euros with the sales of this players so surely they will
have a great team this year? No, they will flop terribly I fear. The
signings of Postiga, Quaresma, Pepe, Rossato, Diego Ribas da Cunha are
of course of great young talents but I fear this is simply too much of
a revolution inside Porto's winning structure. The loss of Carvalho is
irreplaceable, how do you replace the best central defender in the
world? But the real cornerstone of Porto was Mourinho and his
replacement is the true problem here.
Luigi Del Nery is looking more and more like Chief-Inspector Jacques
Clouseau with each passing day. He picked up a winning team playing in
4-4-2 with midfield diamond, he lost some key players but the club
also spent close to 35 million in new signings (unprecedented numbers
for a Portuguese clubs) but the real problem here is that Del Nery is
having Porto playing in 4-2-4 and the back 4 all playing in a straight
line in the midfield and praying that they can cause an off-side like
Franco Baresi used to do in a Galaxy far, far away a long time ago.
This midfield defence might look wonderful in Italy but if this guy
does not open his eyes not only is Porto NOT going to resemble the
fabulous Porto of 2002/04 but they are going to be hammered left and
right and snobs everywhere will boast that it was all a fluke what
Mourinho did, I hope not, I'm not a Porto supporter but they did great
thinks and hopefully people will give them their due.
Del Nery's system is a suicidal as far as defence go, is it not
practical at all, had Del Nery taken Chievo Verona far in Europe he
would have realised that this shit might fly in Italy but it is
moronic anywhere else in Europe. Unless he changes quickly this Porto
who conceded so few goals in the past 12 months is going to have
Victor Baia being machine-gunned every game because the defence in
midfield simply cannot contain the adversary.
Liverpool has not been a major force of late (how could they with that
clown Houllier in there?) but they seem to be in a crescendo and I
assure you that the Porto that will show up in Toronto tomorrow will
in NOTHING resemble the Porto that we saw tearing up Europe last year.
The expectations are great to see the defending European champion but
the Porto which we last saw beating Monaco 3-0 in the CL final is
"Night" and the team who faces Liverpool tomorrow is going to be
"Day".
I hear Kewell and Smicer are injured (it would be better if that
"Piano carrier" Danny Murphy was the one injured) but I would not be
the slightest bit surprised to see the reigning European Champions
tomorrow get crushed by Liverpool and particularly by the speedy
Djibril Cisse who is going to just love having to face this idiotic
new Porto defence.
I hope the sad spectacle that Porto is going to be under Del Nery does
not take away the greatness of Porto in the past 2 years, the team
bares the same name but this is an impostor team being helmed by the a
clueless Italian who has no clue how to structure a team outside
Italian football. For the record I love Serie A.
André
Xerxes
"Fabio Paim is the Messiah" <personaltra...@hotmail.com> escreveu
na mensagem news:d4d6cbd5.04072...@posting.google.com...
: Dear friends from Liverpool. It's time to drop Porto's pants.
Imagino a dor que o Fabio Pain vive neste momento. Receba as minhas
insinceras condolências, caro pained pain :)))
--
Xerxes
bic@mpeão
JMed
as calças em baixo. :-)))
"Xerxes" <xer...@notme.com> wrote in message
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