A good story is worth a tumble of more than 3,000 kilometers, so we took the long way to Lisbon, the city on seven hills. It has recently started football tale of eight Serbs who defend the glorious colors of Benfica. MOZZART Sport brings you the exclusive report on the phenomenon that restores faith in Serbian football.
Finally, the couple still Crnjanski board the "ocean hydroplane, which, as a hyper, small boat, aluminum, rocking on the water, on the Tagus." Fly away to Ireland and the Lisbon remains for them, "below, as well as some jewelry lost in the dark. Lamps flicker in it." He was 20 August in 1941.
Thus Tiago Dejan Stankovic in Politics in an article on the Yugoslav Embassy in Lisbon in the early days of the war , described the last hours of Milos Crnjanskoj the capital of Portugal, who was one of the few "free zones" in Europe.
72 years have passed since then, and Lisbon at night is still bright as jewels, the river Tagus still flows with full force towards the Atlantic, only now it "wears" two impressive buildings - bridges 25 April and Vasco da Gama, a giant 17.2 kilometers long. It is surrounded by baroque buildings and on its coast in Belem, a suburb of Lisbon, it is still true, many say, there are the most delicious cakes in the world - Pasteis de Belem ...
And Serbian intellectual elite, led by the aforementioned Crnjanski and John Dučić, which in this time of war holed up in one of the most westerly point of the Old Continent, was replaced by - football.
Today, the Portuguese diva Nemanja Matic, the man who made the name brand and made it to Lisbon, a city characterized by its mountainous relief, Serbian players are more than the hills!
"Unrealistically good player," as Nuno Paralvas, one of the best selling sports editor of the local list A Bola, described Matic last season, have made it the most popular Portuguese club for Serbs from all over Europe.
From the Netherlands arrived Filip Djuricic (Heerenveen) and Miralem Sulejmani (Ajax), Belgian Stefan Mitrovic (Kortrijk), from Slovakia Uros Matic (Kosice), from Greece Ljubomir Fejsa (Olympiakos), and the Serbian Lazar Markovic (Partizan) and Philip Markovic (Teleoptik). Only that is not all, in the youth Benfica Robert Mirosavić, a Swede of Serbian origin, and in the neighbor's Sporting for a place in the first team fight Luka Stojanovic and goalkeeper Vladimir Stojkovic.
What does it mean for Serbia, and how our country is privileged in Portugal to have this many players, you might want to read the official data of Benfica: it is the club with the most members in the world (the other is Bayern Munich). The Eagles have over 230,000 members who pay a monthly membership fee is 12 Euros. So do the maths yourself for the total ...
"The whole world thinks that we like Portuguese football. However is not so, we just love our clubs. It happens quite often that someone here when his child is born, runs from the hospital to the stadium and signs the baby in the club. My example... At birth Grandpa made me a member of Benfica and I am proud to say that I have over 50 years of offcial membership with the Eagles, "tells us Joao Paulo Trindade, photographer, and the outline of his face there is joy that half a century is shared with your favorite club.
Many loyal fans and Benfica players this season, "punish" non-appearance at the stadium! There's your answer to the question "if there are so many, why the stadium was half empty against Olympiakos?" That would set us safe. Simply put, fans in Portugal are spoiled, and last season, when Benfica played very well, Luz was full, and this is due to the weaker games, a lot of empty seats. However, when you come to watch the team - which at present is led by Jorge Jesus, in the opinion of the majority of fans, is a man unworthy of the office - their life revolves around Benfica.
"My mother," he recalls wistfully Joao, "a champion of Portugal races at 100 meters and long jump. Very fast women. Started to train in a small club, and quickly took her Sporting., Her dad and my grandfather, the one who took me on the first day of life joined in Benfica, took it hard. almost no longer communicate with her. only told her dinner every night at eight. Exactly at eight. If you're late, you're gone for dinner. Well, so it goes. "
History of the club and how picturesque the eagle spreading its wings over the Stadium of Light (Luz port. - Light) prior to each game, and last season the most interesting sequence mentioned in Benfikine past - the curse of the Bella Guttman. The famous Hungarian coach when departing in 1962 from Lisbon cursed club to spend the next 100 years without winning a single European trophy. Along with last year's duel with Chelsea in the Europa League, where Bane Ivanovic down the Eagles, Benfica has since played seven Eurocup finals - and lost them all!
That tragedy was even worse, when the team last season lost the final of the Cup of Portugal Gimaraisa, and the title thanks to a Porto goal by Kelvin in the final moments of the match in the penultimate round.
"No, please, don't take away the impression that the fans do not like their club. Such a small number of people in the stands is not the true picture. Simply, we are still grieving, we need time to get over all this," said a middle-aged person to us in halftime with Olympiakos, not hiding who what he thought of Nemanja Matic.
"Nemanja is one of the most elegant of players that I watched, and I watched many. Sees all and knows all. When the Spaniard (Javi Garcia, author's comment) went to Manchester City, I thought we were in trouble, but well, I forgot the name when I saw what Matic play."
For the fans, it seems that Benfica players should be good enough to get over all that has happened to them at the end of last season, one of the best and most tragic in the recent history of the club. In Lisbon every story begins and ends in football, the game tells the magical and full lips, and with vigorous gestures, and at every step you can hear the opinion president Luis Filipe Vieira was terribly wrong when he renewed the contract of Jorge Jesus after "sad May" as the "Benfikistas" called the damn fifth month of 2013.
Pungent smell of failure, therefore, it pinches the nose of the Eagles fans, and the task is to get him to leave Lisbon with the Serbian players. Nemanja Matic is sacrosanct to "six" (the Portuguese and continue to use only the position numbers), Lazar Markovic is rapidly became a fan favorite thanks to a fantastic goal against Sporting in the city derby, but it came hamstring injury (to be combined for the weekend match against Academica at Coimbra). Health problems plagued and Sulejmani (also returns to the team) and the short preview, and Djurisic one step away from starting lineups. Stefan Mitrovic Uros Markovic Filip Matic and still fighting for a place in by the hellish competition from 116 players (?) from all continents, that's how many Benfica has under contract.
All this was enough reason to MOZZART Sports team went to the scene and the Lisbon you convey the story that the rest of the season could degenerate theis Serbian fairytale.
"You have managed to enter the training center and talk to the players and to take photographs? Uh, that's really unusual here. We almost do not have access to the players, training was closed, and they can only communicate at the press conference," the word Nuno Paralvas from A Bola that only partially describe how hard it was to make the photographs of the match.
Not that we have used methods of Dusko Popov - Serbian famous secret agent, whom James Bond creator Ian Fleming introduced in nearby Estoril during the Second World War, and it created the figure of 007 - but we believe that we have succeeded in making interesting material for you.
