The special too

Andre Vilas Boas, the Porto head coach is being called the clone of Jose Mourinho by the European media.
This is quite the compliment, being called a clone of the "special one".
The Porto boss is a rare breed, he became the head coach of Porto at the age of 33, a very young age to be the boss at one of the best clubs in the World, he has never played professionally, and he had little head coaching experience.
Prior to Porto, he only coached at Academica, but before all that he was the assistant to Jose Mourinho.
One could argue that the two have a lot in common, after all, Mourinho himself was not a star soccer player, and he learned under the late Sir Bobby Robson.
Vilas Boas started out in Porto in the scouting department while he was still a teenager. Jose Mourinho took him under his wing and made him an integral part of his staff at Porto, Chelsea, and Inter.
This however is where the similarities end, however.
Even though both coaches use the 433 formation, Vilas Boas uses a more attacking approach, while Jose Mourinho is known for his tactical and defensive approach. This is not to say that Vilas Boas is not a tactical genious, because he is. The only thing that he lacks is the charisma, and some may say the arrogance of Jose Mourinho. One of the main strenghts of Mourinho is the way that he plays the media. how he uses it to charm his players and the fans, the mind games that he plays against opposing coaches.
This is not always a good thing as it was seen in the press conference yesterday when he disrespected Malaga, and former Real Madrid coach Manuel Pellegrini.
Vilas Boas is getting there, when asked what he thought about the way that Benfica has been playing, his answer was: I don't remember Benfica playing this way in the European Champions League.

No matter what I think about Porto, I will admit that I am very impressed with Andre Vilas Boas, and it will only be a short matter of time until he is coaching a team like Inter, Chelsea, Liverpool or any other giant of Europe like Benfica.....

Benfica dominates Lisbon derby, beats Sporting 2-0

O Classico, or the "Derby da segunda circular" as this rivalry is known has been won by Benfica, again I might add. Benfica dominated from the start of the game.

Benfica beat Sporting by the same result as earlier in the season: 2-0.

This team is in fine form, and even with a man down the entire second half, Benfica continued to play great soccer.

A couple of things to take away from this game is that Salvio needs to be signed on a permanent deal, but considering how well he is playing at the moment, I do not believe that Atletico Madrid will lower their $15 million asking price. This kind of reminds me of the Jose Antonio Reyes situation a couple of seasons ago when he was on loan from Atletico.

Another is that Nico is in fine form, he has replaced Angel DiMaria nicely.

He is showing great vision in his play, and has a lot of flair when he takes on defenders. I would love to see this Argentinean duo together for the next few seasons.

DCU online

DCU Online is a fantastic game. It is well worth the price as the amount of fun that you will have playing this game will make up for the fact that you have to pay $15 a month.

Let us get to what matters, the game itself.
The game starts with a very cool story about the end of superheroes. It explains how you the player ends up with super powers.
After all this, you can choose how your character will look, there is infinite possibilities, you can mix and match, whatever you want.
You also have to choose if you want to save the world, a hero, or if you want to be the doom of mankind, a villain.
So far, because I am so self righteous, I chose to become the next Peter Petrelli, a hero.

The game starts you off in action right away, as you have to fight your way out of a Brainiac spaceship. The game just gets better from here, as you are given missions from other DC superheroes. I found it very cool how the game allows you to fight alongside NightWing, Catwoman, and others in your various missions.

You can also start your own team of superheroes with friends, or if you have none, you can request other players that you meet online to join your own version of the Justice League.
I would continue writing about how awesome the game is, but I do have to get back to playing.

Join me online, NicPortugal.
I am currently playing on the Crisis server.

The Rock returns

I have to say that I was caught by surprise when The Rock showed up at Monday Night Raw!
The Rock was there to confirm that he will be the host for Wrestlemania this year.

I found it interesting that he mentioned John Cena in his "speech" to the fans.
This only confirms what I thought earlier, that Cena will be doing a heel turn soon.

Many questions remain however. Is he back for good? Will he wrestle?
Is he the mysterious Raw manager? I still think that Triple H is.
It will be an interesting couple of months for wrestling fans leading up to Wrestlemania.

The end of a Phenomenom

Ronaldo, the "Brazilian One" or the "Fenomeno" as he is known in Brazil has retired from soccer.
It is a shame, but it was the right time for one of the greatest strikers of all time to hang them up.
The man had a great career, passing through clubs like humble Sao Cristovao, before going to more illustrious clubs like Cruzeiro, PSV Eindhoven, Barcelona, Inter Milano, Real Madrid, and AC Milan before returning home to finish his career with Corinthians in Sao Paolo.
Who can forget the look of dread in the face of defenders every single time the number 9 touched the ball.
Ronaldo, you were great to watch, you will be missed in the soccer field.
Wish you luck with your next endeavor.

Benfica is one of the most exciting teams in Europe!

Ask anyone who has seen a Benfica game lately and they will tell you that this team is playing some great soccer.

As I watched Benfica demolish Vitoria de Guimaraes, on their own right a very good team as well, it made me think of the Benfica team of last year.

Now, yesterdays game, 3-0, could have and to be honest it should have been a lot worse.

Benfica dominated from the start, they had 78% ball possession, Nilson was facing a firing squad all game long.

Cardoso missed a penalty, Saviola somehow had a goal called off due to an offside that only the referee saw, and Benfica had the goalie beat on another two occasions only to see the ball hit the post.

Some interesting facts about Benfica, they are currently on a 13 game winning streak, they have scored at least one goal in their last 16 games, and they have not allowed any goals in the last five games. Very impressive!

Sidnei is making Benfica fans forget about David Luiz who left the club on a transfer to Chelsea for a cool $25 million.

I always liked Sidnei, problem was that playing behind Luisao and David Luiz in never going to be easy.

Next season I am sure Airton will do well when he has to replace Javi Garcia who I am sure Benfica will sell. Proof of this is that Benfica has already signed Coelho from Academica for next season.

football manager

I took a break from blogging, and have spent a ridiculous amount of time playing Football Manager 2011.

This game is famous for being an addictive game, but man, is it fun.

I was always a big fan of the Championship Manager series.

The first one that I ever played was Championship Manager 2001-2002 game.

I remember winning the Champions League in that game with To Madeira getting a hat trick against Roma. This at 3am!! Ah, the memories.

On that team, there were other players like Milito, Tsigalko, Fabio Paim, Joao Paiva, Custodio, Jonas Lunden, Ricardo Quaresma. All of them are legends in Championship Manager. It is interesting that in real life only Quaresma became a starter for their teams.

The game is unbelievable, the amount of information is incredible.

Even real life managers like Arsene Wenger, and David Moyes admitted to using the game database to scout players. That should tell you something.

I always play with Benfica and Santa Clara, and another team from other leagues. I have fun trying to find those great players for a bargain, or better yet, promote from the youth squads. Only in a game can Benfica have 8 starters who are Portuguese.

The game this year is a lot of fun, but it can get confusing sometimes. They changed the interface a bit, but overall it is still good.

The only problem with the game is that Franco Jara and Nico Gaitan are "having problems adapting to the squad" and are "having difficulties communicating with the other players because of the language barrier".

Considering that the majority of the Benfica squad are native Spanish speakers, I cant imagine this would be a problem. Hell, eight of the Benfica starters speak Spanish, and six of them are Argentinian like Jara and Nico are.

However, things like this are not enough to take from the overall fun of this game.

Enough for today, let me get back to trying to perfect the 442 diamond formation that Benfica uses in real life. It is as much fun to watch in the game as is in the real world.