Portimonense can make history this afternoon, at 17:45 pm, if they manage to beat Marítimo, at Estádio dos Barreiros, in Madeira, and qualify for the League Cup final. The Algarve team has already ensured the best performance of a set of the II League in the competition and today it is back to find a first-tier team, away from home.
Although José Augusto, coach of Portimonense, said, in the preview of the match, that there are no favorites, historically there is one and he wears black and white.
In 26 matches between Portimonense and Marítimo, the Algarve's superiority is evident: there are 12 wins, 10 draws and only 4 defeats for the team from Alvinegra, since the distant season of 1973/1974, when both teams competed in the National Division II Zone South. In total, Portimonense rocked the maritime networks 37 times and conceded 20 goals.
To find the last defeat of Portimonense against Marítimo, it is necessary to go back 28 years, until August 21, 1988, in Funchal. In that match, Oliveira scored first for Madeira, Aurélio tied for Portimonense, and, towards the end, Paulo Ricardo made the 2-1 final. Since then, the two teams have faced each other five times and the Alvinegros have never lost.
In the last confrontation between the two teams, on May 8, 2011, for the Primeira Liga, Portimonense, coached by Carlos Azenha, received and beat the islanders 1-0, with a goal by Ivanildo, at a time when the team algarvia struggled not to drop division, which ended up happening.
In the current squad of Portimonense, there are two players who participated in this match: Pires and captain Ricardo Pessoa.
These two athletes were also present in Portimonense's last trip to Madeira, to face Marítimo, in the first round of that season in 2010/2011. With Litos still on the bench of substitutes, the alvinegra team drew 1-1.
This is, by the way, the result that most often happened in the matches between Portimonense and Marítimo: in 26 matches, six matches ended in a draw with one goal for each side, something that cannot happen today, considering that it is a competition to eliminate and the game will have to end with a winner.
For José Augusto, Marítimo – Portimonense is the most important game of his career, as he admitted to journalists in the preview and is one of the most important in the history of Portimonense that can reach the first final of a competition at this level.
To find Portimonense in a semi-final of a national club competition, it is necessary to go back to the 1982/1983 season. The Algarve team reached the "socks" of the Portuguese Cup, but Benfica prevented the Algarve from going to Jamor. 2-0 was the result of that match, in which Nené was the “executioner” of Portimonense, by scoring the two goals of the reds.
For today's game, the Portimonense coach guarantees that he wants to «reach an unprecedented final. We have this opportunity and it's not worth hiding it and we really want to go further and play the game eye to eye with Marítimo».
To reach the semi-final of the League Cup, Portimonense eliminated Desportivo das Aves, Penafiel and won, in the group stage, three teams from the Primeira Liga: Arouca, Sporting and Paços de Ferreira. Alvinegro fans now hope that Marítimo will be the fourth primary to be out of the way.
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