A toalha não será atirada ao chão.
It’s been half a week since the Dragons were together as a complete group, facing Sporting in their week 21 match up. The dragons despite coming off a good week last week would take a harsh tumble against the lions and would suffer a heartbreaking 3-0 defeat at the Alvalade on Sunday. Although the loss would further the gap between the current champions and Benfica and Braga ahead of them, Jesualdo Ferreira would refuse to signal the loss as the end of their title race stating, “The result is a consequence of the exhibition. We had a bad game. Sporting were happy at the very beginning of the game. We had errors and were not able to respond. The moments of the goals were decisive. We lost this game with merits of Sporting and our demerits. Still we are champions. While the points allow us to pursue this objective, we will continue to fight. We closed a cycle of 15 games with a single defeat. The three points are in good hands. This was the first week since January 2nd without a game in half of the week. All teams go through these situations, especially those who play with the pace and intensity of our playing. I will not talk about the appointment of the arbitrator, because then people would say he was putting something on the victory of Sporting. We lost, period. “
Despite the loss the Champions still had something to be proud of as many of their players would be taking part in international duty this week as many countries took part in friendlies across the world. Bruno Alves, Rolando, Raul Meireles & Silvestre Varela would be called up to national duty for Portugal’s senior squad taking on China, Alvaro Pereira & Jorge Fucile would receive a call up for Uruguay against Switzerland, David Addy for Ghana against Bosnia, and Miguel Lopes & Nuno André Coelho for Portugal’s U-21 side against Wales.
Up next for the Dragons is a match against Olhanense in their week 22 match up. Ruben Micael will give the Dragons a boost as he has been reintegrated into the squad for Saturday’s match. However, Ernesto Farias, Orlando Sa, and Fernando all are still out facing current injuries and will not be available for the match Saturday. Porto’s starting keeper Helton has spoken on behalf of the club this week stating that the team has moved on from the loss against Sporting and only is focused on the match against Olhanense and continuing to fight for the title, “At home, there’s no one that sits in your chair or on your couch to watch a movie and leave 10 minutes before the end. With us also is that,” Helton stressed, refusing to hand over the title to the rivals. The keeper made it clear however that, “We have no margin for error.”
In other very important news also on the minds of the Dragons is their final 16 second leg match up with Arsenal in London on the 9th of this month; Porto is going into the clash a goal up on aggregate. Also the team played a training match against Padroense on Wednesday, winning 5-2 with four goals from Hulk and one from Caetano; because many of the first team’s players were not available due to international duty, Jesualdo Ferreira called up up Sub-19 players David, Ricardo, Bacar, Sérgio Oliveira, Mikel, Claro & Caetano.
You can watch Porto/Olhanense Saturday at 17:00 on Sport TV1.
