Liga NOS - A league on the rise producing genius has become a shopping center for European heavyweights

By -
Even in the biggest club competition of them all, the UEFA Champions League, the Portuguese clubs are starting to show they aren't just pushovers.


Back at the start of the 2008/09 season, the Liga NOS is ranked tenth in the UEFA coefficient League rankings, below The Russian Premier League, Ukrainian Premier League, Dutch Eredivisie and the Romanian Liga I.

Three years later, they moved into the top five, leapfrogging the leagues mentioned earlier, and the French Ligue un, are were occupying the fifth spot at the time.

The projection in rank was thanks to FC Porto's success in the UEFA Europa League in 2011, a season where three Portuguese teams reached the semi final of the competition.

The losing finalists, Braga, defeated Benfica on away goals in the semi final while Porto dominated and beat Spanish side, Villarreal 7-4 on aggregate before going on to beat Braga 1-0 in the final thanks to a Radamel Falcao strike.

They maintained the top five status until the 2016/17 season, when the Ligue un move above them again and since then, they've been out of the top five.

In the last seaon's Champions League, they awere represented by more teams than the Ligue un, albeit they trailed them in the UEFA ranking.

This came to be after Monaco lost in the playoff round to Shakhtar Donesk, meaning only Lille and PSG were qualified. Benfica won in the playoffs and joined Porto and Sporting CP in the Champions League group stages.

And in the competition proper, two teams each from the two leagues made it out of the group stages but both Lille and PSG were eliminated in the round of 16.

The the Portuguese sides, Sporting CP were eliminated by Manchester City in the round of 16 but Benfica managed to go one better, beating Ajax in the round of 16 before losing out to Liverpool in the quarters.

In the season before, PSG's semi final run was one better than Porto's quarter final exit, which came in the hands of the eventual champions, Chelsea.


The margin between the two leagues in the UEFA coefficient ranking is not much and even now that the Ligue un parade some of the big names in the sport, in the likes of Lionel Messi, Neymar Junior and Kylian Mbappé, a place in the top five is not well secured.

PSG are not helped by the other teams in the French top-flight, whom are not as competitive as the other teams in the other top five leagues.

Liga NOS teams have also evolved in their style of play. They now try to play liquid football and the chemistry among their players help to frustrate opposition players, who might be of better quality.

Even when losing, most times it is the quality of the opponents in the final third that decides those games. They always look dangerous and rarely sit back to absorb pressure, but take the game to their opponent.

The recent rise of the Liga Portugal has also coincides with the emergence of talented players from the league and most of the big clubs in Europe now choose to scout players from there.

In recent times, the likes of Bernardo Silva, Joao Felix, Hector Herrera, Bruno Fernandes, Ruben Dias, Casemiro, Ederson Moraes, Nuno Mendes and more have been signed from the league by top teams.

This year, Luiz Diaz, Darwin Nuñez, Fabio Vieira and now Vitinha has been snapped up by top teams in Europe whilst more is also expected as Wolves and Fulham battle it out for the signature of Joao Palhinha.

The resurgence of the Liga Portugal has made their teams become ones to watch out for in all three European competitions and the forthcoming season beholds promise form them even though there are lots of outgoings, a lot more stars are bound to be raised.


Author: Kehinde Hassan Afolabi

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ralf Rangnick proffered a permanent solution but United choose to make more casualties with Erik Ten Hag

By -
Image
Ralf Rangnick appeared to have unraveled the puzzle at Manchester United during his short stint as the club's interim manager but the hierarchy did not take heed to his priceless advice. Albeit the German did not enjoy the best of time in the helm of affairs in Old Trafford, Rangnick, who had proven to be more of a administrative minded man prior to his appointment at the club did left blueprints that could have healed the club completely. Looking back and you'll realize it could have been more worth it had speculations of him becoming the club's Director after leaving the Coaching role come to pass. Even in his early days as a professional football coach, Rangnick did not have a reputation of thriving when the stake is high but he flourishes more in an environment that gives him the avenue to build from scratch. The notion was proven truth during his time at Stuttgart, Hannover and even Schalke, where he helped all these teams finesse nightmares into glamour. His appointme
Read more

Doping in sports and the popular culprits in football

By -
Image
Doping in sports is a huge crime as it damages its credibility, and athletes are viewed to have committed an offense when they test positive for illegal performance-enhancing drugs (PED). What is doping ? According to Merriam Webster defines doping as the use of a substance (such as an anabolic steroid or erythropoietin) or technique (such as blood doping) to illegally improve athletic performance. In sports, such action is regarded as cheat, and grave consequences always come with it. Not only that, but on the players' part and their safety, as in the long run, such substances have a long-lasting side effect on the health of the players. Why do athletes dope (take illegal performance-enhancing drugs (PED)) ? There are several reasons take illegal performance-enhancing drugs, and it also depends on the type of sports the athletes in question do. The majority of the reasons is to boost performance. Athletes are also tempted when injured and do not have enough time to recover before
Read more

A sign of what is to come but no excuse for Chelsea's late capitulation in the London derby

By -
Image
Chelsea ended a run of three straight home defeats to Arsenal in an enthralling London derby match in the Stamford Bridge on Saturday evening. While many will see it as a positive omen for the host, which is rightly so, it was very poor game management by both the players and the manager to allow the visitors snatch a point later on the night. Arsenal was there for the taking. It was the worst display by Mikel Arteta's side in recent years and despite having a two goal cushion, Mauricio Pochettino's side were unable to see out the win from a very comfortable position. Cole Palmer and Mykaylo Mudryk continue to show signs of finally settling into their rhythm under Mauricio Pochettino, much to the delight of the home support as the Blues were all over their rival from the North for the first 70 minutes in the Bridge. Both players also scored in either half, with Mykaylo Mudryk scoring his first ever Chelsea goal in the Stamford Bridge with a wonderful cross-cum-shot, which caugh
Read more