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Sport Lisboa e Benfica commonly referred to as simply Benfica, S.L. Benfica and in many fan anthems as SLB, is an eclectic multisports club based in Lisbon, Portugal, best known for its football team. Benfica was founded in 1904 by a group of men led by Cosme Damião and the club's main stadium is the Estádio da Luz.
They were founding members of Portuguese Liga in 1933, and, together with FC Porto and Sporting CP, they have never been relegated from the Primeira Divisão. Benfica is the most successful club in Portugal with a total of 31 Portuguese Liga, 27 Portuguese Cup, 4 SuperCup Cândido de Oliveira, 2 UEFA Champions League and 1 Latin Cup.
SL Benfica has the biggest fan base among Portuguese clubs, having also the largest number of supporters outside of Portugal for a Portuguese club, with a total of 14 million Benfica's supporters worldwide. It is also the biggest club in the world in number of associates (registered paying supporters), with a current (November 2006) number of 160,398, a fact which was attested by the Guinness Book of Records on November 10, 2006.
The emblem is composed of an eagle, a shield in the club colours of red and white, and the acronym SLB for "Sport Lisboa e Benfica" over a football, all superimposed over a bicycle wheel, which was taken from the Grupo Sport Benfica emblem. The club motto is E Pluribus Unum, "Out of many, one".
Before every home match, an actual eagle named Vitória flies from one side of the Estádio da Luz to the other.
1st team evaluation I suggest moving all of the youngsters and unavailable players to the u19s for a better overview
At first glance you get a good squad with some well known players. Players like Nuno Gomes, Petit and Rui Costa provide the experience. But don't forget you have a strong and young backline with David Luiz(20), Edcarlos(22) and Luisão (26).
So you've got years to come from those players.
The squad also consists of some raw talents like Freddy Adu, Fabio Coentrao and Miguelito. I suggest using these 3 throughout the season for squad depth.
Transfer Policy
In my humble opinion this squad can definitely win the league with the right strenghtening. In my hunt for players Porto often beat me, but i'll still suggest some of those players.
There are 2 great left wingers at the club in Fabio Coentrao and Angel Di Maria who are covered by a great Freddy Adu. So no need for strengthening tbh. But there was practically no right winger at the club. I only had 1 favourite for this position and that was Ali Karimi (already a club favourite).
The striker department is practically non-existent in Nuno Gomes, Mantorras and Cardozo. Nuno Gomes is too old. Mantorras can't cut it but he was kept as backup. And i don't like a Cardozo kind of striker. So in came Landon Donovan, Rodrigo Palacio and Mika Aaritalo.
I also decided to get in an experienced centre back. I was looking at Edu Dracena and Fernando Meira, with Meira my top target. Unfortunately Porto came in and swooped him away.
Appears there are some talents away on loan. Players that even get called up for international duty like Tiago Gomes and Kaz Patafta. This is a way to strengthen your squad or get money in the transfer kitty.
Either way you can only benefit from this.
10-28-2007, 10:23 PM
FM 2008: SL Benfica - As Águias (The Eagles) Post #3
Main Subs
---------
Gourcuff (Loan)
Di Maria
Ever Banega
Freddy Adu
Sherman Cardenas
Eros Corradini (GK)
my best players so far are
Gabriel Hauche 8 goals in 6 matchs with 3 man of the matchs and 1 assist
Van der Vaart sets up plays that lead to goals, 2 apperances 1 assist
Matias Fernandez 2 goals and 3 assist in 6 apperances
im in 3rd in the league with one match to play that will put me in first, and i havn't lost or drawn a match in the league in all league games ive won by more then 2 goals
so i think my team is set
10-28-2007, 10:25 PM
FM 2008: SL Benfica - As Águias (The Eagles) Post #4
Looks like you've got a great squad there. How far in are you ? I'm currently in November. Will post a January update though.
Currently 3rd and unbeaten with 15 points. Only conceded 2 goals in 7 games. Porto are 2 points above me but i've got 1 game in hand and Sporting are top with 21 points. I've got 2 games in hand, so if i win both those games i'll be top since i've scored more and conceded less than Sporting.
I'm in the Champions League group stages. I'm in Group H together with Inter, Schalke and Levski. Have played 4 games, won 2 and lost 2. Won against Levski (2-0) and against Inter (1-2), but lost against Schalke (0-1) and Inter (1-3). So might not go through...
Benfica are such an enjoyable team to manage! But my players tend to tire quick so i'm only giving the 1st team players 45 mins for international friendlies.
Now gonna play Leiria for my 8th game of the season.
10-28-2007, 10:45 PM
FM 2008: SL Benfica - As Águias (The Eagles) Post #6
im on 23rd of september unbeaten in league being in second by a point with one match less then porto and in the group stages of the champions league i drew 1-1 with sturgatt but van der vaart can't play because i wasn't allowed to add him in due to already having played for another club.
about the international friendlys main team players play depending on who they are...
10-29-2007, 01:04 AM
FM 2008: SL Benfica - As Águias (The Eagles) Post #7
I had to play some Liga Vitalis team called Trofense, so i thought to myself: "Heck, why not play my youngsters!". So i made a line up consisting of these players. And at FT it was a 1-1 draw... Then one of the most tense penalty shootouts i've ever had on an FM game!! Post-match overview!
Btw: That Rui Ferreira is quite a gem! In the youth setups he's got an average of 7.18 and has scored 8 in 10(1). And that was his first professional game and he scored a beauty!
10-29-2007, 04:20 AM
FM 2008: SL Benfica - As Águias (The Eagles) Post #8
Bwin Liga
At the halfway point (15 games in), things have really heatened up. Starting Point: The exciting clash on the 21st december between Porto and Sporting. If Sporting lost i could become leader of the pack... Porto won 1-0. I, offcourse, won my game.
4 days later a big built up to the Benfica - Sporting game. Paulo Bento tried some mind-games on me and i reacted angrily, a 1-0 win for Sporting!
This saw my hope of the championship fade. With both Porto and Sporting above me, morale was at a low and we had Braga coming up (4th in the league).
After the Sporting game i said my team had to hope for other results to go our way...
...
And so it was Maritimo who did us a favour and beat Sporting in their first game of the new year! We beat Braga 2-1...
Qualified for the group stages after a 2-1 aggregate win over Dinamo Bucharest.
This was a though assignment for me and the club.
We HAD to qualify to the second round from a though group wich included Inter, Levski and Schalke04.
The first game against Levski went just how i expected. 3-1! The second game saw Schalke visit us, i expected to win by a small margin. But lady luck was on Schalke's side and they won 1-0!
Followed by a 3-1 loss to Inter, our chances were very slim and i was putting my hopes on the Uefa Cup.
In San Siro we went about to win 2-1 with goals from Aaritalo and Adu. Them only scoring a 90th minute penalty.
Inter beat Schalke and we beat Levski (3-0).
It all came down to the final confontation! I decided to go for a more careful approach than we did in our last game and with Palacio on form we had nothing to lose.
Schalke 0 - 3 Benfica Palacio 33", 88"
Donovan 86" Champions League Group H Some kind of bug in the results
I signed Breno from São Paulo and Alex from Vasco Da Gama. While Hans-Jörg Butt, Zoro, Luis Filipe, Nuno Assis and Cristian Rodriguez were shown the door.
Luisão and David Luiz at the back is proving to be a great partnership. They're keeping Dracena out of the team, but intrest has grown onto them! Teams from all over Europe have reported in for their services, in the likes of Arsenal, PSV, Roma, Lazio, Zaragoza, Villareal, Ajax, At. Madrid, Barcelona and Betis.
Other players enjoying a lot of intrest are Quim, Biglia and Katsouranis.
Rodrigo Palacio
10/10
He struck a deadly form after his injury. Scored 11 in 15(3) so far. Including 10 since recovering from his injury.
Danny
7.5/10
Has shown to be quite a supersub. Got his first international cap and is forcing his way into the team.
Angel Di MarÃ*a
9/10
Has shown a great deal of potential and keeps everyone else out of the team. Too bad he got injured.
Lucas Biglia
10/10
Definately the best player i've got. Creates something out of nothing, gets quite a lot of assists, steady performer and enjoying intrest from Inter.
Quim
10/10
12 Clean Sheets in 25 games and conceded only 15 in the remaining games. Has had 5 clean sheets in a row and often keeps my team in the game.
10-29-2007, 04:25 AM
FM 2008: SL Benfica - As Águias (The Eagles) Post #9
FM 2008: SL Benfica - As Águias (The Eagles) 
avid Luiz
Linear Mode
