• Primeira Liga.Classification

The review of the leaders of the main European leagues is now routine at this stage of the season. There are, more or less, those who were called to be: Barcelona, ​​Liverpool, Juventus, Bayern, PSG, Ajax ... This happens until the look moves to Portugal and the surprise, the unexpected leader, for most fans to football even unknown. At the top of the table, one point ahead of Benfica and Porto, with eight more than Sporting de Portugal, Famalicao governs Portuguese football, a condition that this afternoon (6:30 pm) must defend in O Dragao against the Iker Casillas team.

It is also not a leader who is taking advantage of a bad start of the roosters in the league. Benfica and Porto have only given up a loss in seven games, but they push the knee for the unbeaten Famalicao for the moment, adding six wins and a draw in their first season in the elite in 25 years. In this last quarter of a century, the whole of northern Portugal, based in a city of 130,000 inhabitants, 85 kilometers from the border with Galicia, has fallen to the fifth division of Portuguese football. This is only his sixth foray into First in 88 years of club history.

Two proper names give meaning to this improbable story and none of them wear boots with studs. The first one is Idan Ofer, owner of the club and second maximum shareholder of Atlético (behind the Gil family), a club that owns 32% of the shareholding. This Israeli tycoon, owner of the largest private tank fleet in the world and with a fortune estimated by Forbes of 5.5 billion dollars, took control of Famalicao in the summer of 2018, when the club became SAD.

Atlético, Valencia, Benfica ...

But a multimillionaire owner is not enough and that is where the middle name of his own appears, the parsley of all the sauces with the flavor of Portuguese football: Jorge Medes. The most powerful agent in the world (Cristiano, Mourinho, Diego Costa, James, Bernardo Silva ...) was involved in the project, first to make a template that fought for promotion and now to build a competitive in the Portuguese maximum division.

There is only to review the origin of the Famalicao ceded to perceive the role of Mendes in the club. It has two players on loan from Atlético (Nehuén and Schiappacasse), two from Valencia (Spaniard Álex Centelles and Racic), one from Benfica (Diogo Gonçalves) and another from Wolves (Roderick Miranda), all of them clubs in which the superagente has a great influence and an important history of collaboration. In addition, he has relocated in the Famalicao a player who had just contract with Atlético (Gustavo Assunçao), another in Benfica (Guga) and another in Wolves (Pedro Gonçalves). They have two Spaniards, the aforementioned Centelles and Toni Martínez, former West Ham.

23.8 years on average

Names, in any case, of low profile. Because the Famalicao is not a new rich of millionaire signings, but rather the opposite. According to the Transfermarkt portal, its entire workforce has a total market value of 25.3 million euros, only the seventh highest data in the category. To put the figure in context, it is enough to point out that Porto and Benfica have four players each whose market value is equal to or greater than those 25 million. And Sporting has one, Bruno Fernandes, valued at 60 kilos , more than double that of Famalicao's full squad.

He doesn't even have a renowned coach. Joao Pedro Sousa, 48, took office in summer after a decade working as an assistant in clubs such as Everton, Watford, Olympiacos and Sporting de Portugal. Under his direction, an eleven type of 23.8 years on average (and that the goalkeeper is 36 ...). Among all of them, with Mendes behind the curtain, they shape the most amazing story of the season in European football.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • sports
  • football
  • Portuguese League

Soccer, Neymar's centenary with Brazil

Champions Bayern humiliates Tottenham with seven goals

ChampionsDybala dresses Cristiano to save Juventus