Why are Benfica not in the CL?

[Archie's penalty]

They look amazing! Saviola, aimar. Tearing Everton apart.

[Victor Meldrew]

Good to see those two again after both lost their way playing in Spain.
I wonder why we have so few of those types of players-those playing just behind a lone striker or a pair.
Liverpool tried it with Litmanen and both Chelsea and Man Utd tried it with Veron but generally we seem to prefer runners from midfield,Gerrard,Lampard,Fabregas etc rather than these tricky types-Aguerro sometimes plays that way for Athletico Madrid and Iniesta used to play there before being moved out wider when Ronaldhino left.
Totti has made a career playing that way for club and country as Baggio did before him.
Back to Benfica-they splashed out a bit during the summer and what a smashing side they are now to watch.

[Archie's penalty]

Must be favourites for the europa league. As good as most of the teams in the CL imo of course.

[Archie's penalty]

Howard said Benfica were like a CL team

[bobbybottler]

Good to see those two again after both lost their way playing in Spain.
I wonder why we have so few of those types of players-those playing just behind a lone striker or a pair.
Liverpool tried it with Litmanen and both Chelsea and Man Utd tried it with Veron but generally we seem to prefer runners from midfield,Gerrard,Lampard,Fabregas etc rather than these tricky types-Aguerro sometimes plays that way for Athletico Madrid and Iniesta used to play there before being moved out wider when Ronaldhino left.
Totti has made a career playing that way for club and country as Baggio did before him.
Back to Benfica-they splashed out a bit during the summer and what a smashing side they are now to watch.

Litmanen was well passed his best when he signed for Liverpool. An example of an English player of that type would be Beardsley.

[sheshnu]

Or Joe Cole at Chelsea. Now Liverpool have Benayoun who would play there if Benitez had any sense, Fabregas does play that role for Arsenal these days and Man U have Rooney who is that sort of player. So there are examples of them in the English game today.

Benfica look great though, enjoyed watching them smash Everton in the first leg. Portugal have some pretty decent teams at the moment who all seem to have a substantial South American influence - good effort from one of the slightly smaller leagues..!

[Four Of Clubs]

... sure I heard a brief bit on last night's Five Live about them not winning their domestic title for yonks - a la Scousers - but just looked it up and ..... sure 'nuff accuracy not being a watchword with the Beeb - they actually last won their national Championship in 04/05 - albeit with the lowest points total ever in the history of the League.

They won virtually nowt in the 10 yrs preceding that.

They've finished outside the top two now for four consecutive seasons - hence they haven't made it into the Group stages of the CL since 07/08.
Finished 3rd last season so reportedly not eligible - can't quite see how it adds up but presumably Portugal now only supplies Champions and Runners-Up - who have to enter the Play Offs? Maybe they had three slots for a while on the back of Porto's win back in 04?

... and finally a 'Triv. Claim' from Wiki :

Currently, Benfica remains the leader of international football clubs with the largest number of paying club members worldwide. (Over 200,000)

[Thames]

They used to have 3 slots but now only 2.

Search the UEFA Club Co-efficient scheme on Wikipedia cause it's bloody complicated to explain.

[Ferris]

Must be favourites for the europa league. As good as most of the teams in the CL imo of course.

16/1 with Coral!

[sheshnu]

They used to have 3 slots but now only 2.

Search the UEFA Club Co-efficient scheme on Wikipedia cause it's bloody complicated to explain.

Surprising really because they always seem to be doing alright in the group stages. Or have I just made that up? Although this year Sporting fell foul of Platini's dastardly plan to get more clubs from different nations involved...

[1960]

Early days yet, but Benfica are second behind Sporting Braga. Where have they come from? Perennial champions Porto are third, but have qualified fo the CL knockouts. The other big Lisbon team, Sporting, are 7th.

[Thames]

They used to have 3 slots but now only 2.

Search the UEFA Club Co-efficient scheme on Wikipedia cause it's bloody complicated to explain.

Surprising really because they always seem to be doing alright in the group stages. Or have I just made that up? Although this year Sporting fell foul of Platini's dastardly plan to get more clubs from different nations involved...

Porto have always done well but the others have always been abit sh1te.

This Benfica team look a very capable outfit though.

[papereyes]

I think, further to this, there's always a good number of decent 'foreign' teams in the UEFA cup that would easily hand an English side its arse back to it on a plate.

Villa got hammered by Hamburg last year
Everton by Benfica

And you can't tell me that teams like Ajax, Villareal, Valencia and Galatasaray aren't big.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uef ... k2010.html

is a good place to start with coefficients.

Portugal currently 10th on that list, as high as 6th a few years ago.