S.C. Braga

Braga

Full name	Sporting Clube de Braga
Nickname(s)	Os Arcebispos (The Archbishops) Os Arsenalistas (The Arsenal fans) Os Minhotos (Those from Minho) Os Guerreiros do Minho (The Minho Warriors)
Founded	1921 January 19 (19-01-1921)
Ground	Estádio Municipal de Braga
Ground Capacity	30,286
Chairman	António Salvador
Manager	Paulo Fonseca
League	Primeira Liga
2014–15	4th
Website	Club home page
Home colours Away colours

Sporting Clube de Braga (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈspɔɾtĩŋ ˈkluβ(ɨ) ðɨ ˈβɾaɣɐ]) (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 Estádio Municipal de Braga, also known as The Quarry and for commercial reasons the AXA Stadium, which was built for UEFA Euro 2004.

Domestically, Braga won the 1965–66 Taça de Portugal and the 2012–13 Taça da Liga. In the 2000s, the club gradually became one of Portugal's most successful clubs after the Big Three and has competed with some success in European competitions, winning the last ever UEFA Intertoto Cup (the only Portuguese club to do so) in 2008 and reaching the final of the UEFA Europa League in 2011. After finishing in second place for the only time to date in the 2009–10 Primeira Liga, Braga achieved a place in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League for the first time in its history by eliminating Celtic and Sevilla. Braga also qualified for the group stage of the UEFA Champions League in 2012–13 by eliminating Udinese.

History

Braga have been known as Arsenal do Minho and changed their kits from green and white to their Arsenal-style red during the 1945–46 (with the reserve squad) and the 1946–47 (with the main team) seasons due to their president José Antunes Guimarães who had business connections in London and was an Arsenal fan (this is one version of the story: the other one says that Josef Szabo, a Hungarian coach who loved Arsenal's playing style asked the president to change the green and white uniform to an Arsenal-style red). In that year (1947) they won the Second division title reaching the First division for the first time. Braga even renamed their youth team Arsenal de Braga.

One of the first matches played in Arsenal-style kits against R C Celta Vigo

The emblem of Sporting de Braga is the city of Braga's shield with Mother Mary and baby Jesus with the blue from the city's shield changed to red. 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 team home kit that resembles that of English club Arsenal.^[1] They are also known as Bracarenses because of being from the city of Bracari, later named Bracara Augusta, city 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 Gallaecia and the largest Portuguese city by the time the Kingdom of Portugal was formed by Afonso I of Portugal. At that time, Guimarães became the seat of the King and nobility, whereas Braga remained the centre of trade and religious power (largest city and seat of the Archbishop).

European ambitions and recent history

Braga's ranking in Europe since 2003

Season	UEFA Ranking	Points
2003–04	–	–
2004–05	139th	15.739
2005–06	136th	17.533
2006–07	96th	27.107
2007–08	79th	33.176
2008–09	50th	39.292
2009–10	48th	39.659
2010–11	28th	62.319
2011–12	29th	63.069
2012–13	29th	62.833
2013–14	40th	52.959
2014–15	37th	51.776

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 successive 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 beginning of their rise in success both in the League 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 multimillion-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 Champions 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 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 2010–11 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.^[2] 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.^[3] In the fourth qualifying round, they beat Sevilla 1–0 at home and 4–3 away, thus entering the Champions League group stage for the first time.^[4] On 15 September 2010, Braga were heavily defeated 6–0 by Arsenal in their first group stage.^[5] On 28 September, Braga lost 3–0 against Shakhtar. On 19 October, Braga won 2–0 against Partizan. Two weeks later, on 3 November, Braga won 1–0 against Partizan in Belgrade. On 23 November, Braga beat Arsenal 2–0 at home, keeping their hopes of qualifying for the knockout stages alive if they could better Arsenal's result during the final round of matches. However, on 9 December, Braga lost 2–0 to Shakhtar while Arsenal beat Partizan 3–1. The results meant that Shakhtar and Arsenal progressed to the second round, but Braga finished third in the group to qualify for the knockout stage of the UEFA Europa League, where they would come to eliminate Lech Poznań, Liverpool and Dynamo Kyiv to reach the semifinals of the competition. It was the first time Braga reached the quarter-finals, and then the semi-finals of a European competition. It was also the first time three Portuguese clubs reached the Europa League's semi-finals simultaneously. On 28 April, Braga lost 2–1 against Benfica in the first leg of the semi-finals. On 5 May, Braga went on to win the tie in the second leg with a 1–0 home win to reach the Europa League Final 2011. On 18 May, Braga lost the final 1–0 to Porto.

In the 2012–13 season, Braga played for the second time in the group stage of the Champions League, after eliminating Udinese in the play-off round, by beating them in the penalties, after the first and second legs ended in 1–1.^[6][7][8] Braga lost the first game of the group stage of the Champions League to Cluj in home by 2–0 and won the second game by beating Galatasaray in Turkey by 2–0. In their third game, Braga visited Old Trafford where they were defeated by Manchester United, despite being winning by 0–2, Braga went down by 3–2. On the fourth matchday, Braga went on to receive Manchester United, but, after keeping a one-goal advantage until the 80th minute, they eventually conceded three goals, and lost 1–3. During their domestic season, they finished in 4th place, behind Paços de Ferreira, which got their Champions League vacancy.

League and cup history

Recent seasons

Last updated: 18 December 2015

Honours

^{[9] [10]}

Domestic

• Primeira Liga

• Runners-up: 2009–10

• Taça de Portugal

• Winners: 1965–66
• Runners-up (4): 1976–77, 1981–82, 1997–98, 2014–15

• Taça da Liga

• Winners: 2012–13

• Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira

• Runners-up (2): 1982, 1998

• Segunda Divisão^[11]

• Winners (2): 1946–47, 1963–64

• Taça Ribeiro dos Reis

• Runners-up: 1970–71

• Taça Federação Portuguesa de Futebol

• Winners: 1976–77 (First Division)

International

• UEFA Intertoto Cup

• Winners (1): 2008 (Outright Winner)

• UEFA Europa League

• Runners-up (1): 2010–11

European record

Update: 10 December 2015

Season	Competition	Round	Club	Home	Away	Aggregate
1966–67	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup	R1	AEK Athens	3–2	1–0	4–2
		R2	Raba ETO Győr	2–0	0–3	2–3
1978–79	UEFA Cup	R1	Hibernians	5–0	2–3	7–3
		R2	West Bromwich Albion	0–2	0–1	0–3
1982–83	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup	Pre	Swansea City	1–0	0–3	1–3
1984–85	UEFA Cup	R1	Tottenham Hotspur	0–3	0–6	0–9
1997–98	UEFA Cup	R1	Vitesse	2–0	1–2	3–2
		R2	Dinamo Tbilisi	4–0	1–0	5–0
		R3	Schalke 04	0–0	0–2	0–2
1998–99	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup	R1	Liepājas Metalurgs	4–0	0–0	4–0
		R2	Lokomotiv Moscow	1–0	1–3	2–3
2004–05	UEFA Cup	R1	Hearts	2–2	1–3	3–5
2005–06	UEFA Cup	R1	Red Star Belgrade	1–1	0–0	1–1 (a)
2006–07	UEFA Cup	R1	Chievo	2–0	1–2 (a.e.t.)	3–2
		GS	AZ Alkmaar	–	0–3	3rd
			Slovan Liberec	4–0	–
			Sevilla	–	0–2
			Grasshopper	2–0	–
		L32	Parma	1–0	1–0	2–0
		L16	Tottenham Hotspur	2–3	2–3	4–6
2007–08	UEFA Cup	R1	Hammarby	4–0	1–2	5–2
		GS	Bolton Wanderers	–	1–1	2nd
			Bayern Munich	1–1	–
			Aris Thessaloniki	–	1–1
			Red Star Belgrade	2–0	–
L32	Werder Bremen	0–1	0–3	0–4
2008–09	UEFA Intertoto Cup	R3	Sivasspor	3–0	2–0	1–4
2008–09	UEFA Cup	Q2	Zrinjski Mostar	1–0	2–0	3–0
		R1	Artmedia	4–0	2–0	6–0
		GS	Portsmouth	3–0	–	3rd
			AC Milan	–	0–1
			Wolfsburg	2–3	–
			Heerenveen	–	1–2
		L32	Standard Liège	3–0	1–1	4–1
		L16	Paris Saint-Germain	0–1	0–0	0–1
2009–10	UEFA Europa League	Q3	Elfsborg	1–2	0–2	1–4
2010–11	UEFA Champions League	Q3	Celtic	3–0	1–2	4–2
		PO	Sevilla	1–0	4–3	5–3
		GS	Arsenal	2–0	0–6	3rd
			Shakhtar Donetsk	0–3	0–2
			Partizan	2–0	0–1
2010–11	UEFA Europa League	L32	Lech Poznań	2–0	0–1	2–1
		L16	Liverpool	1–0	0–0	1–0
		QF	Dynamo Kyiv	0–0	1–1	1–1 (a)
		SF	Benfica	1–0	1–2	2–2 (a)
		Final	FC Porto	0–1
2011–12	UEFA Europa League	PO	Young Boys	0–0	2–2	2–2 (a)
		GS	Club Brugge	1–2	1–1	2nd
			Birmingham City	1–0	3–1
			Maribor	5–1	1–1
		L32	Beşiktaş	0–2	1–0	1–2
2012–13	UEFA Champions League	PO	Udinese	1–1	1–1 (5–4 pens)	1–1 (5–4)
		GS	CFR Cluj	0–2	1–3	4th
			Galatasaray	1–2	2–0
			Manchester United	1–3	2–3
2013–14	UEFA Europa League	PO	Pandurii Târgu Jiu	0–2 (a.e.t.)	1–0	1–2
2015–16	UEFA Europa League	GS	Marseille	3–2	0–1	1st
			Slovan Liberec	2–1	1–0
			Groningen	1–0	0–0
		L32		–	–	–

Current squad

As of 30 July 2015

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

No. Position Player 4 MF Alef 5 DF Willy Boly 6 DF André Pinto (vice-captain) 7 FW Wilson Eduardo 8 MF Luíz Carlos 9 FW Crislan 14 MF Aarón Ñíguez 15 DF Baiano 16 DF Djavan 17 FW Rui Fonte (on loan from Benfica) 18 MF Rafa Silva 19 FW Nikola Stojiljković 20 FW Hassan 21 MF Filipe Augusto (on loan from Rio Ave)

No. Position Player 23 FW Pedro Santos 24 DF Ricardo Ferreira 25 DF Stian Ringstad 27 MF Josué (on loan from Porto) 28 GK Marafona 30 FW Alan (captain) 32 DF Arghus 35 MF Nikola Vukčević 63 MF Mauro 76 GK Tiago Sá 87 DF Marcelo Goiano 88 FW William Pottker (on loan from Figueirense) 92 GK Matheus

Out on loan

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

No. Position Player 1 GK Stanislav Kritsyuk (at Krasnodar) 10 MF Joan Román (at CD Nacional) 11 FW Rodrigo Pinho (at CD Nacional) DF Tiago Gomes (at Metz) DF Wallace (at Monaco) DF Randal Oto’o (at Tondela) DF Vincent Sasso (at Sheffield Wednesday) MF Rodrigo Battaglia (at Rosario Central)

No. Position Player MF Juan Carlos (at Málaga) MF Pedro Tiba (at Real Valladolid) FW Fábio Martins (at Paços Ferreira) FW Erik Moreno (at Real Valladolid) FW Dolly Menga (at Tondela) FW Felipe Pardo (at Olympiacos) FW Rambé (at Farense)

Former managers

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sporting Clube de Braga.

• Official website (Portuguese)
• FootballLineups team profile
• Braga News at PSNL Soccer

Coordinates: 41°33′45″N 8°25′51″W / 41.56250°N 8.43083°W / 41.56250; -8.43083