The Portuguese Mess

This post will detail why I cannot, despite ethnicity, support Portugal.
The team in my view, in no way represents Portugal, the people or even the portuguese footballers.  The FPF (Portuguese Federation) is run by a clan of elites who support a miserable pro club in portugal called Sporting Clube de Portugal (SCP).

SCP tends to be supported by the more well to do individuals in Portugal, political elites, and social climbers.  Benfica tends to be supported by the working class and the citizens of former portuguese colonies.  FC Porto has a regional base which is the north of Portugal.  Benfica has a glorious history of success having the most titles in portuguese history, oodles of cups and european titles.  FC Porto also has an incredible history of success in much the same way.

SCP has no such history.  Despite being backed by the elites in the country they can't find success if it hit them in the face.  The club Sporting CP has a deep and engrained culture of failure, losing and contempt for talent.  Anyone, coach or player who shows any promise in that club is immediately shown the door.  Cristiano Ronaldo started there, for example.  He played less than one pro season and was immediately sold.  There is a countless list of players and coaches that are welcome to stay a decade at SCP if they suck.  Once they show any quality, they are shown the door.  This is why they never win anything. Not in Portugal and not in the european competitions.

Portugal's coach Paulo Bento is one of these degenerate losers from the SCP power structure.  He coached there and made close friendships with many of the athletes who played there at the time.  He selects his roster and starting 11 not on talent but on the relationships he forged there.  His decisions are not in the interest of Portugal winning, but in rewarding his SCP mates and attempting to insult Benfica and its supporers.

This year for instance.  Benfica won the Portuguese league, Cup and League Cup.  Porto did the same in the past two years.  Clearly Benfica and Porto have far superior talent than SCP who didn't even finish top 6 to qualify for the european competitions last year.  Well you wouldn't know it by the players he selected.  One of the most decisive Portuguese players this year was Ricardo Quaresma.  He saved Porto from the brink and had a brilliant season.  He wasn't even picked for Portugal's team.  But his old SCP mate Miguel Veloso - who is by far and away the WORST PLAYER IN THE WHOLE WORLD CUP, not only makes the team, he starts.  He makes Rui Patricio the starting goalie despite his history of "frangos" (total mistakes resulting in a goal).  He played awful in qualifying, but in line with SCP culture, failure is the goal, so he stuck with him.  This despite having this years european champion Beto from Sevilla languishing on the bench.

Against the US, Portugal's first goal came from Andre Almeida - a benfica player, who got his first minutes this world cup.  He made the cross that led to the goal.  Played a stellar first half in defence and kept the US off the scoreboard.  So in SCP culture, what does setting up goals and defending perfectly get you?  - the bench.  At halftime he was substituted off, the US immediately sensed the weakness and scored two goals.  In desperation, he summoned Porto winger Varela off the bench -- who scored.  I would bet Varela will be punished for his success by not getting anymore playing time.

It would take too long to get into how profoundly sick the culture is at SCP and how they truly hate success and love failure.  IT takes a special kind of loser to be a part of that club and support that club.  But that is who is running the federation.  Portugal barely qualified. They had to go to the playoff against sweden and save for an individual performance from Ronaldo who singlehandledy won the game, Portugal would have been out.  How did the federation react to a coach who almost didn't qualify ?  They renewed his contract.  By contrast 2010 coach Carlos Queiroz got 7 points in the first round of the world cup with no goals allowed and emerged from the group.  The response to that was his immediate firing.  This is the culture of Sporting Clube de Portugal.

So being a huge Benfica supporter, how can I say that this team management represents me ?  When Benfica players are good enough to win all three titles in Portugal and make the european final, but apparently now not one of their players is good enough to start.  That is not representing the best interests in portugal or portuguese football.  That is the culture of failure from SCP.  SCP only represents a small number of Portuguese.  This FPF team is run by losers, degenerates failures.  They don't represent the vast majority.  They don't have the best 23 portuguese footballers on the roster and definitely don't start the best 11.  Portuguese players have been dropping like flies with no contact muscular injuries - a sign of inadequate physical training and preparation.  Defender Pepe got  bonehead red area in game 1 - a sign of lacking psychological preparation.  Its total abject failure.  Failure so bad it got rewarded with a two year contract extension in true SCP fashion.

So no, I do not support Portugal, I do not want them to win because this team is not legitimate.  It is a cabal of SCP losers who only know how to do one thing well - FAIL.