S.L. Benfica – A complete guide for Geordies (part one)
Posted on March 29th, 2013 | 7 Comments |
In this first part, I will taking a brief look at the history of the club, as well as taking a look at the links between Benfica, Newcastle United and the North East in general. There aren’t a huge amount and Thursday will be the first time the teams have ever met in a competitive game, but they are quite interesting nonetheless.
History, facts and stats.
The club known as Sport Lisboa e Benfica, or simply “Benfica” was formed by 18 year old footballer Cosme Damião on 28 February 1904. In their 109 year history since then they have become Portugal’s most successful club, with 32 Portuguese League titles, 24 Portuguese Cups plus 3 Campeonato de Portugal titles (the old version of the cup), 4 Portuguese League Cups, 4 Portuguese Super Cups and not least, 2 European Cups won in 1960 and 1961.
As well as being Portugal’s most successful club in terms of trophies, they are also the biggest, holding a place in the Guinness Book of World records as the “world’s most widely supported club” in terms of members or “sócios”. The figure for that record, 160,398, was recorded in 2006; however it has risen since then, surpassing 200,000 in 2009. In finacial terms though, Benfica and Newcastle United are roughly the same. In the latest Deloitte “Football Money League” for 2013, Newcastle were the world’s 20th largest club with a annual turnover €115.3 million, with Benfica at 22nd with an annual turnover of €111.1 million.
As Portugal’s biggest club, they are one of the “Três Grandes” (Big Three) of Portuguese football, along with the other big Lisbon side, Sporting Clube de Portugal aka “Sporting Lisbon” and the dominant team of the last few years, FC Porto from Portugal’s second city. Having written that, it is currently Benfica who are sitting on the top of this season’s Primeira Liga, with Porto currently four points behind in second place. Poor old Sporting are currently trailing way back in tenth in a division of only 16 teams.
Americans will be very familiar with the iconography of the club’s crest. The symbol of the eagle with the motto “E pluribus unum” (Out of many, one) is the same as the great seal of the United States.
The four highest goalscorers in the Benfica’s history all played during the club’s “golden period” between 1960 and 1970. In this era, Benfica reached the final of the European Cup five times, winning the trophy twice in 1961 and 1962. In the table below, you can see the records of these players compared with that of the club’s current top scorer Óscar Cardozo, who barring injury will almost certainly be playing against Newcastle in the two legs. Cardozo is currently the 12th highest scorer in the club’s history and rising.
Benfica all time top goalscorers. | |||||
# | Name | Years | App | Gls | GPG |
1. | Eusébio | 1960–75 | 440 | 474 | 1.08 |
2. | José Águas | 1950–1963 | 384 | 374 | 0.94 |
3. | Nené | 1968–1986 | 575 | 360 | 0.63 |
4. | José Torres | 1959–1971 | 259 | 226 | 0.87 |
12. | Óscar Cardozo | 2007- | 242 | 150 | 0.63 |
App – Appearences, Gls – Goals, GPG – Goals Per Game. |
Jimmy Hagan – The Benfica manager from Washington.
Born in 1918, Hagan’s father Alf was an Inside Left for Newcastle United between 1919 and 1923, though he only made 21 competitive appearences and five friendly appearences in that time. Like the aforementioned Robson though, Hagan Jnr was another inside forward from the North East whose star was to shine elsewhere, most notably at Sheffield United where he played for 20 years, rightly becoming one of the club’s most legendary players.
After managing Peterborough United and West Bromwich Albion in the UK, Hagan was appointed head coach of Benfica in 1970. Though he was only there for three seasons (1970-73), Hagan is rightly remembered as one of the great Benfica coaches, guiding them to the Portuguese League title in all three seasons of his reign, as well as winning the Portuguese Cup in his second season. His third and final season there was a record breaking one, with Benfica being the first club in Portuguese history to win the League without a solitary defeat.
However, Hagan left Benfica in September 1973 after a row over the testimonial game for Benfica’s most celebrated player and Hagan’s friend, Eusebio. By his account, Hagan was “a strong disciplinarian” who gave the Portuguese softies a bit of Geordie steel. This is what the legend had to say about him:
“All the players thought his training schedules were too punishing and some were physically sick after the first training session. But after a while, they realised it was worth it as we started winning games. He gave us the extra strength and he is the reason Benfica won three successive championships.” To help speed up their progression they should buy whey protein shakes. There’s nothing better for the toughest training schedules.
After Hagen left Benfica, he continued his management career in Portugal, managing Benfica’s great Lisbon rivals, Sporting, then Boavista, Vitória Setúbal and Belenenses.
Graeme Souness – Benfica and Newcastle United manager.
Benfica.
If you read Benfica’s Wikipedia page, you will find the section which encompasses Graeme Souness’s period as head coach under “the crisis.” To be fair, Benfica were already in the doldrums by their own high standards when he arrived, but Souness’s attempt to turn the elegant continentals into a team of ageing British bruisers hardly helped.
With echoes of Kenny Dalglish signing the ancient Ian Rush and John Barnes at Newcastle, Souness signed a 34 year old Dean Saunders from Sheffield Wednesday after managing Saunders at Liverpool several years before. Another Souness signing was the 31 year old Michael Thomas whose legs had obviously gone west by the time he pulled on a Benfica shirt. The 30 year old Brian Deane was also brought in as a big target man along with the likes of Steve Harkness, Mark Pembridge, Gary Charles and Scott Minto. Meanwhile, young Benfica talents such as Deco were disposed of by a head coach who seemingly displayed little interest in Portuguese players, whether from Benfica or any other Portuguese side. He steadfastly refused to learn Portuguese too, not even the basics, and never used one word in of the local lingo in interviews, press conferences etc, which helped to further alienate him from the fans.
To be a head coach of Benfica for two years in the Portuguese League and fail to win a trophy is quite an achievement, however Souness managed the task with ease until Benfica fianlly decided they’d had enough and sacked him in 1999.
Newcastle United.
At Newcastle United, he was brought in as a replacement for the aforementioned Bobby Robson after Robson’s disappointing fifth placed finish in the 2003-4 season, followed by a disappointing start to the 2004-5 season with only two points from the first four games. There were also rumours of trouble in the dressing room and there was booing from the fans too.
When hard man Souness took over, he announced that he was going to “bang some heads together,” but few guessed that eventually, players such as Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer would end up banging their heads into each other in front of a full house at St James’ Park.
His reign started well with three straight victories in the Premiership, and the club were undefeated in their first nine games under the Scotsman. However it all went wrong, and stayed wrong. A side consisting of such talents as Shearer, Given, Bellamy, Robert, Dyer and Jenas slumped from their previous 5th placed finish to 14th at the end of the season. Around £50 million was spent on players, £34.5 million of that on Jean Alain Boumsong, Albert Luque and Michael Owen alone, yet the side still floundered in the next season.
After 23 Premiership games, with the side fifteenth and only six points above the relegation zone (as they are as I write this piece incidentally), enough was enough and Souness was sacked after a 3-0 beating by a pre moneybags Manchester City side. It was their third defeat in a row in what was a dire performance for the Magpies. The manager’s position was handed to the then Academy coach, Glenn Roeder. Under Roeder the transformation was immediate, with the Mags winning ten of their last fifteen Premiership games, drawing two and losing only three games. They finished the season in seventh, eventually qualifying for the UEFA Cup after winning the Intertoto Cup.
The curse of Béla Guttmann?
Getting back to Guttmann and Benfica though, the story goes that after he helped Benfica to replace the great Real Madrid side of the time as the best team in Europe with those two European Cup triumphs, he asked the club for a pay rise. Benfica’s owners turned him down flat and he walked. Legend has it that as he left the club, he said “Not in a hundred years from now will Benfica ever win a European Cup.” Though they continued as a top European club for a while, reaching the European Cup final in the year following Guttman’s acrimonious departure in 1963, as well as 1965 and 1968, they have never won a major European trophy since.
To this day, if Benfica play a European away fixture close to Guttman’s grave in Vienna, they will lay flowers, and his most famous signing, Eusebio, even went to pray there on one occaision. However, there are two things wrong with this alleged “curse.” Firstly, Guttmann actually returned to manage Benfica for a short period in 1965. Secondly, Guttmann was no Alex Ferguson in the sense that a 20 year+ spell as manager of one team certainly wasn’t for him. He was a wanderer by his own admission. One of his more famous quotes being “the third season is fatal” As I mentioned before, he had already coached Benfica for three seasons when he left, and Benfica wasn’t the only club he walked out on after a pay dispute. He changed position no fewer than 25 times in his coaching career if you don’t count the clubs he managed more than once.
In the concluding part, I will be taking a look at the current Benfica side including their coach Jorge Jesus, tactics, players and so forth.

Poll
You didn’t make any reference to the other Stadium of Light when discussing North East connections. I wouldn’t have been able to resist.