Football Season Guide

One year after having been relegated to secondary football, Nacional da Madeira is back again into swimming with the big sharks after a good season in Second division. The team from Madeira island managed to get the title over there with some comfort. As usual, it is very hard to predict what a newly promoted team can do at top flight, and despite Nacional da Madeira are returning after only one year of being relegated from first division, most things have changed, including the coach who is now the well-known figure Costinha who earned his place at the helm of a top flight team by driving Nacional into a very successful season, last year. Unlike what happens more often than not with newly promoted squads, Nacional has kept the backbone of the team that clinched the second division title, last season. With very few exceptions, most of the base XI and the more used subs will be playing this season at top flight level. Such are the cases of goalkeeper Daniel Guimarães, defenders Nuno Campos, Mauro Cerqueira, Felipe Lopes and Júlio César, midfelders Jota, Kaká and Diego Barcellos, and attacker Rochez; some of them will be having absolute debuts on Portuguese top division. On the other hand, the few exceptions are very important ones: the two main attacking threats of last year were too hot to hold for Nacional and they left to join more ambitious projects. Winger Murilo and his 14 goals called the attention of big guns Braga, while last season’s top goalscorer with 24 goals, striker Ricardo Gomes left to join Partizan, at Serbia. Bryan Riascos had also a good goalscoring form, last season, at Oliveirense, and was brought to Nacional to replace Ricardo Gomes in the striker position. Some unknown Brazilians amongst Portuguese eyes have arrived from lower divisions and will try to make an impact at Portugal, such as 19-years old defender Arthur or 22-years old goalkeeper Lucas França.