S.C. Braga

Braga

Full name	Sporting Clube de Braga
Nickname(s)	Os Arcebispos (The Archbishops) Os Arsenalistas (The Arsenalists) Minhotos (Those from Minho) Os Guerreiros do Minho (The Minho Warriors)
Founded	1921
Ground	Estádio AXA, Braga (Capacity: 30,154)
Chairman	António Salvador
Manager	Domingos Paciência
League	Portuguese Liga
2009–10	Portuguese Liga, 2nd
Home colours Away colours Third colours

Sporting Clube de Braga (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈspɔɾtĩɡ ˈklub(ɨ) dɨ ˈbɾaɡɐ]) (Euronext: SCB), commonly known as Sporting de Braga or just Braga, is a Portuguese sports club, from the city of Braga. Its football team plays at the AXA Stadium, also known as The Quarry, which was built for UEFA Euro 2004. In the 2000s, the club gradually became one of Portugal's most successful clubs after the Big Three, and they have also competed with relative success in European competitions, winning the last ever UEFA Intertoto Cup in 2008. After finishing 2nd in 2009-10 Portuguese Liga, Sporting Braga achieved a place in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League for the first time in its history by eliminating Celtic FC and Sevilla FC. Sporting Braga is currently sponsored by Italian sportswear company Macron.

Symbols and supporters

Braga, who owe their Sporting Club tag to the better known Sporting Clube de Portugal, after whom they were named, have been known as Arsenal do Minho and changed their kits from green-and-white hoops to their Arsenal-style red in 1920 when their then-coach Jozef Szabo, following a trip to England and Highbury, ordered the club to adopt new colours to establish their own identity (Braga even renamed their youth team Arsenal do Braga). The emblem of Sporting de Braga is the city of Braga's shield with Mother Mary and baby Jesus. On the top of the emblem is the golden Mural Crown of Braga, with the name Sporting Clube de Braga on it. Many fans of Braga have said that Mother Mary gives them luck. The fans of Braga are known as Arsenalistas due to their teams uniforms that resemble that of English club Arsenal. They are also known as Bracarenses because of the Bracara Augustus region of Portugal that is now known as Braga. Aside from the loyalty of its supporters, the Minho derby against Vitória de Guimarães is a match that both sets of fans eagerly await. This match is more than football, it is a way people from the north view each city. The derby is one of Portugal's most intense matches, and children under 13 are restricted from entering unless an adult is with them. The rivalry goes back to when the City of Braga was the ancient capital of Galicia and Guimarães, who were led by the first Portuguese King, Afonso I of Portugal, was one of Portugal's biggest cities.

European ambitions and recent history

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Braga began to climb up the league ladder and eventually participated in the UEFA Competitions. Braga's recent run of sucessive european participations began in the 2004–05 UEFA Cup, after finishing fifth under Jesualdo Ferreira's first full season in the club. This marked the begining of their rise in success both in the Liga and Europe. In the 2005–06, they challenged for the championship until the penultimate round, ending fourth. In 2006–07, Portuguese up-and-coming manager Carlos Carvalhal became manager of the club and started with a poor start to the season, losing to AZ in the UEFA Cup despite crushing Czech Republic champions Slovan Liberec 4–0 (who had drawn against Sevilla only a week before), and a 4–1 loss to Madeiran side Marítimo. These losses proved to be the end of his season, despite success in European competitions, with an overall score of 3–2 against Italian club Chievo in the first round of the UEFA Cup. Carvalhal resigned and was replaced with Rogério Gonçalves with former Portugal captain Jorge Costa as assistant manager of the club. Gonçalves' first game in charge couldn't have gone better with a 3–1 over Benfica and a week after a hard-fought loss against UEFA Cup and UEFA Super Cup champions Sevilla in the Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán. After a 1–0 away defeat to União de Leiria in a league match on 18 February 2007, Gonçalves resigned. Braga president António Salvador announced on the same day that assistant manager Jorge Costa would be in charge until the end of the 2006–07 season. In his first game, Braga beat Parma 1–0 (2–0 on aggregate). They then played Tottenham Hotspur, where they lost 6–4 on aggregate in the last 16. Braga eventually finished fourth in the league for the third successive time, just beating Belenenses by a point on the last day.

During the summer of June 2007, it was presented that AXA would be the club's sponsors in a multi-million dollar deal in which the name of the stadium was changed to Estádio AXA, with this being the first in Portugal.

After the 2006–07 season, Braga qualified for the UEFA Cup, where they faced Hammarby IF. Despite losing the first leg in Sweden 2–1, Braga won at home 4–0 to qualify to the group stage for the third consecutive time. There, their first game was against Bolton Wanderers where the game finished 1–1. Braga then played German giants Bayern Munich, who were the favourites to win the competition; despite the negative feedback, Braga drew 1–1 with Roland Linz scoring the vital goal. After that impressive display, Braga faced Aris with another 1–1 draw, with Linz scoring another vital goal for the Minhotos. Braga then went into the last game against Red Star Belgrade of Serbia where they picked up a 2–0 victory, which was enough to take them into the next round. They went on to face Werder Bremen but lost the first leg 3–0, which Braga missed two penalty's, and the second 1–0.

The 2008–09 UEFA Cup season saw the Minho club go against Bosnian club HŠK Zrinjski Mostar, who dropped from the UEFA Champion's League second round. Braga started as favourites and beat Zrinjski Mostar 3–0 on aggregate. In the next phase, the Minho side were paired with Slovak giants Artmedia Petržalka, who were then beaten 6–0 on aggregate with Albert Meyong scoring a hat-trick in the process for Braga.

After successfully qualifying for the UEFA Cup group stage proper for a third successive season, the Portuguese side were paired with FA Cup winners Portsmouth, Italian giants Milan, Wolfsburg of Germany, and Heerenveen of the Netherlands. Braga started the game at home to Portsmouth and were convincing 3–0 winners with Luis Aguiar scoring from a freekick and setting up the other two goals. This game proved to be Portsmouth boss Harry Redknapp's last game as he then moved to Tottenham Hotspur. In the next group game, Braga faced a daunting task at the San Siro against the competition favourites Milan. The game finished in a 1–0 defeat for the Portuguese side. Despite the loss, Braga dominated the game for many long periods of time, holding the Italians to 0–0 after 93 minutes, but an individual goal from Ronaldinho from 35 metres out gave the Italians the full three points. The next game was against Felix Magath's Wolfsburg where Braga lost 3–2, despite scoring the first two goals. The last game was at the Abe Lenstra Stadion in the Netherlands against Heerenveen. Braga won the game 2–1 and progressed to the next stage. After getting further in the UEFA Cup than any of their ten fellow winners of the UEFA Intertoto Cup, Braga were declared the last outright champions of the competition.

In the 2010-2011 season, Braga made their UEFA Champions League debut at home in a 3-0 win against Celtic in the first leg of the third qualifying round.^[1] They lost the second leg away at Celtic Park 2-1, but went through to the Play-Off round on an aggregate score of 4-2.^[2] In the fourth qualifying round, they beat FC Sevilla 1-0 at home and 4-3 away, thus entering the Champions League group stage for the first time.^[3] Where they will play Arsenal, Shakhtar Donetsk and Partizan Belgrade.^[4]

Honours

Domestic

• Portuguese Liga
  • Runners-up (1): 2009–10
• Portuguese Cup:
  • Winners (1): 1966
  • Runners-up (3): 1977, 1982, 1998
• Portuguese SuperCup:
  • Runners-up (2): 1982, 1998
• Portuguese Second Division:
  • Winners (2): 1947, 1964
  • Runners-up (2): 1957, 1975

International

• UEFA Intertoto Cup:
  • Winners (1): 2008

Current squad

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Artur 2 DF Alberto Rodríguez 3 DF Paulão 4 DF George Lucas 5 DF Moisés 8 MF Mossoró 9 FW Paulo César 10 FW Hélder Barbosa 11 FW Ladji Keita 12 GK Quim 13 DF Eduardo Neto 15 DF Miguel Garcia 16 DF Léo Fortunato (on loan from Cruzeiro) 18 FW Lima 19 FW Albert Meyong 20 DF Elderson

No. Position Player 21 FW José Collado 22 MF Luis Aguiar (on loan from Dynamo Moscow) 23 MF Andrés Madrid 25 MF Leandro Salino 26 GK Marcos 28 DF Sílvio 30 FW Alan 40 MF Guilherme 45 MF Hugo Viana 48 DF Aníbal 59 FW Eli Zizov (from youth team) 84 GK Felipe 85 FW Élton 88 MF Vandinho 99 FW Matheus -- MF Custódio

Out on loan

• Aníbal (at Vizela)

Notable former coaches

• Jorge Jesus
• Jesualdo Ferreira
• Manuel Cajuda
• Carlos Carvalhal
• Jorge Costa
• António Conceição
• António Caldas
• József Szabó

League and cup history

The club has 51 presences at the top level of Portuguese football. Its best placing ever on the league table is 2nd place, accomplished in the 2009–10 season. The table below shows the club's performance since its first presence in the 1st Division in the 1947–48 season.

References

External links

• Official website (Portuguese)

• Detailed up-to-date Braga news
• FootballLineups team profile
• PSNL club entry