Football Season Guide

15 years after, Azores Archipelago sees their biggest club coming back to top flight league. Santa Clara returns to Portuguese top division after having clinched a second place in second division only in the last two rounds of the season. As usual, it is hard to assess the strengths of a team that is just arriving to top flight, specially after spending so much time in lower divisions. And it should be considered an obvious thing that Santa Clara won’t be aiming for much more than to survive amongst Portuguese best teams. Azores’ eagles brought João Henriques to lead the team to success, this season, which comes as a slight surprise after the very same João Henriques being helpless to avoid relegation at Paços de Ferreira, last year, in his only experience at First Division, in Portugal. One of the biggest challenges for Henriques, this year, will be to rebuild Santa Clara’s defensive system, after the departure of pretty much everyone in that area from last season. The four men at the back – João Reis, Vítor Alves, Marcelo Oliveira and Igor Rocha are all gone. Henriques will be counting instead with some men with top flight experience, such as right-back Patrick (after a year of practically no football at Benfica), or centre-half César Martins, who returns to Portugal after seasons spent at Benfica and Nacional. Fábio Cardoso returns too to Portugal, coming from Glasgow Rangers, after a very promising season on 2016-17 at Setúbal. In the midfield and in the attack, the board managed to keep most of their players, which will certainly help to keep the teams identity even if now playing at a different level. Captain Pedro Pacheco will be rewarded with a season at top flight after faithfully staying at Santa Clara in the past 8 seasons. Anderson Carvalho returns to Portuguese league after having spent three relatively good seasons at Boavista. Zé Manel will try to bring his goalscoring experience at this level, after having been a prolific goalscorer (for a winger) at Boavista and Setúbal in previous seasons. All eyes will be on the attacking duo Thiago Santana and Fernando Andrade, after the great season they had last year with the former having scores 17 goals and the latter, 15.