Thursday, August 26, 2010

Braga!!!

On Tuesday Braga advanced to the group stage of the Champions League for the first time in the club's history. They did this by defeating a Sevilla team that has been a regular in the competition. This is a huge win for Braga. It's a small club in a city with less than 200,000 residents. The club's administration has done a great job the last 5 years or so managing the club's finances. Unlike most other clubs in Portugal, Braga is not heavily in debt and tend to live within their means. From a financial perspective this win is huge. I'm not sure how much they're getting for qualifying for the group stage. I've heard as low as 5 million EUR and as high as 15 million EUR. Lets say it's 10 million EUR. For Braga that's a lot of money. The team's salary is well below that level. The club stands to make even more money via the gate and could advance to the next stage of the competition. They got a good draw, Arsenal, Partizan, and Shakhtar Donetsk. It won't be an easy group but it's certainly within their reach to qualify for the next round. I hope they do and that they can use these new funds to cement themselves as a regular competitor for the Portuguese championship. ABOLA is also reporting that Hugo Viana is close to leaving Valencia and joining Braga on a free transfer. He was on loan at Braga last year and was a big part in their drive for the title last year. His addition would be a big boast for the team.

Sporting was able to travel to Denmark today and overturn a 2-0 loss at home with a 3-0 victory to move on to the next round of the UEFA Cup. I didn't see that coming.

Porto was also able to advance. They have played very well thus far.

Should be a fun year over in Europe.

-Andrew

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