Violence and unreason invade Portuguese football at unsuspected levels and, above all, unheard of in Europe. Day yes, day too, the players engage in discussions with high levels of aggressiveness, when they do not come to blows and continue in the locker room tunnel beyond the final whistle.
It doesn’t matter if top-tier or modest teams face each other, sparks fly every weekend for whatever reason: a controversial refereeing decision, an elbow, a gesture, a look… not even the application of the VAR has managed to calm the waters.
The classic Porto-Sporting Lisbon It ended last Friday with no less than four expelled, in a rough and improper end of the match
two of the best clubs in the championship, which are first and second in the standings separated by six points.
It is not surprising, therefore, that a detailed study yields some blushing numbers: 72 expulsions over 22 days. A figure well above those recorded in the Premier, Serie A or La Liga Santander.
Every two games, a player leaves the field sent off in Portugal. A very high average that corresponds to this equivalence: a referee teaches 0.50 red cards per game, while in France and Italy the figure remains at 0.36, in Spain 0.34, in Germany 0.22 and in the United Kingdom 0.14. Precisely, Lisbon and Porto they should look to London or Manchester for solutions, as that belligerence that hooligans used to impose has been considerably reduced thanks to severe punishments and strict prohibitions on entering the grounds.
However, impunity rules freely in Portugal currently, and thus it is difficult to straighten the curve. It was demonstrated in Dragon’s Stadiumwhere up to 50 people (including players and coaches from the two squads) were involved in altercations more typical of Angola or Mozambique (to name just two former Lusitanian colonies in Africa) than of the competition from which Futre, Deco, Figo emerged , Cristiano Ronaldo, Bruno Fernandes or Diojo Jota.
S7 expulsions on matchday 21 break the record of absurdities that have been accumulating, with Belenenses and Sporting at the top of the sad list of the teams with the most players who have to leave the field early: seven and six, respectively. If we take into account the yellow cards shown, at Maritime of Funchal they have taught him no less than 62, so far this season. At the opposite extreme, Benfica has received 32 of them and becomes the most disciplined club.
In total, the first round of the Portuguese League has seen 932 cards drawn, corresponding to 54 red and 878 yellow… and the player who has been sent off the most times this season (for now, of course) is Alfa Semedo, from Vitoria Guimaraes, on three occasions yes.
police operations
But it is that, in addition, the police operations for alleged corruption have taken place in recent months in the offices of the main teams, unparalleled in Madrid or Barcelona. Let’s not forget that the former president of Benfica, Luis Filipe Vieira, allegedly appears in obscure matters of illegal collection of commissions. And the same Pinto da Costa, who took Íker Casillas to the shores of the Atlantic a few years ago.
The Portuguese League also produces episodes as unusual as the scandal that occurred at the end of November: the Belenenses-Benfica it was not suspended despite the fact that the first ones were devastated by a strong outbreak of Covid. The modest club from the Lisbon neighborhood of Belém only had nine players available… and agreed to play the match against the 11 benfiquistas in these unusual conditions. Incredible, but true, so the result at halftime was 0-7. An unprecedented anomaly in Portugal or, of course, in any European country.
How is it possible that neither the League nor the Portuguese Federation stop such nonsense? It was the question that traveled the social networks from north to south, as reflected in the comments of Bernardo Silva, the Portuguese star of Guardiola’s City. To make matters worse, the Benfica players celebrated the goals as if nothing had happened, which made the game surreal, or rather Kafkaesque, given the worsening of the epidemiological situation on the other side of the border before Christmas.
The resumption of the game after the interval was delayed for a few minutes because the referee entered the locker room tunnel. Seven of the nine Belenenses players jumped onto the field to play the second half and one of them fell to the ground right away. «This is the game of shame«, «They should suspend not only this match but the entire competition». The phrases spread like wildfire because few people believed what their eyes saw.
Finally, the game ended up being suspended since the controversy did not stop growing and Belenenses was left with six troops on the pitch.
