New Bedford's Casa do Benfica celebrates anniversary with Benfica legends Isaías and Eliseu

NEW BEDFORD – S.L. Benfica legends Eliseu and Isaías joined more than 400 guests at the Fishermen’s Club in New Bedford last Saturday to celebrate the local Casa do Benfica’s 33rd anniversary.

“An event of this nature has not been held for years and this Board saw fit to do it,” explained Joaquim Bettencourt, a member of the club’s board and the organizing committee. “We were lucky to have a lot of friends and were able to set up a committee that helped us organize the event. The purpose is to try to unite the community, unite the Benfica nation and provide some moments with some former glories to people who cannot travel to Portugal, can’t go to Estádio da Luz to watch games.”

Juliana Freddy, from the Communications Department of Sport Lisboa e Benfica, and Jorge Jacinto, Director of the Casas do Benfica in the diaspora, were also in attendance.

Ricardo Farias was the master of ceremonies on a night when Isaías and Eliseu, at the request of Luís Pedro, president of Casa do Benfica in New Bedford, posed for a long time for photos with guests and give autographs.

In a joint interview with WJFD, the two soccer legends touched upon a variety of topics related to S.L. Benfica and the current status of soccer in Portugal.

“I'm very proud to be here,” Eliseu said. “So many players have passed through Benfica and I was one of the privileged ones, Isaías as well, to be here. I have a lot of friends here, I wasn't expecting to see so many friends living here in the New Bedford area, and I’m very happy about that.”

He said people here feel differently about Benfica.

“I don’t know if it’s because it’s further away, but here people feel for Benfica a lot more,” he noted. “They support each other; they have very beautiful life stories. It’s beautiful to see and feel the affection of people on the street.”

He said he was really surprised by their passion.

“The community here is contagious,” he stressed. “The closeness, the charisma, it is a great identity that is called SLB. It’s very gratifying and I’m very proud to have come from so far away and be here and able to live a little bit of what it was like when I played. So, it’s wonderful because it just shows the dimension of this great club of ours, Sport Lisboa e Benfica.”

Eliseu - From Angra do Heroísmo to Lisbon

Born in Angra do Heroísmo, on the island of Terceira, Eliseu achieved the dream that all young Azoreans pursue when they start playing soccer.

“In 1997-98, they made an All-Star team in Terceira to face Benfica,” he recalled. “We played the game and lost. If I’m not mistaken, by 2-1, and after the game Benfica contacted my club to ask if I could go to Lisbon to do some tests.”

At the end of the year, he went to Lisbon to train and try out at Benfica.

“They contacted my club, Marítimo de Corpo Santo from Terceira, saying that they were interested in my services. At the time, the club president, Mr. Manuel Alves, who was a very important person in my career, did everything possible and not possible so that I, before signing for Benfica, could do some tests at Belenenses. And that’s how it was, Belenenses didn’t let me leave. I signed for Belenenses and I didn’t go to Benfica.”

In his second season at Belenenses, he made 24 appearances. But the following year, he was rarely used and eventually was loaned to Varzim, which competed in the Liga de Honra. In 15 games, he scored 3 goals.

“At that time (coach Jorge) Jesus returned to Belenenses,” Eliseu said. “He already knew me more or less, and he contacted me so that I could quickly return to Belenenses.”

He returned to Belenenses, stayed there for a few more seasons and then the opportunity came to go to Malaga, Spain.

While playing for Malaga, he caught the attention of Carlos Queiroz, who called him up to the Portuguese national team in February 2009 for a friendly match to prepare for the 2010 World Cup qualifiers against Finland.

After a short spell at Italian Serie A side Lazio, he was loaned to Spanish side Zaragoza before returning to Malaga.

“Those were great seasons,” Eliseu recalled. “I played in the Champions League. We were in the quarter-finals of the Champions Leagu. We had a very good team.”

He made 116 more appearances for Malaga, scored nine goals and caught the attention of Sport Lisboa e Benfica, for whom he signed a four-year contract in the summer of 2014.

When the invitation came, he didn't even think twice.

“Only those who are there every day really see the greatness of Benfica,” he said. “It’s a fantastic club. They take care of just about everything so that the player is 100 percent focused only on training and playing. And they give you fantastic conditions. They support the family. You have everything to dedicate yourself to soccer; you just have to think about training and winning.”

Refereeing in Portugal

Refereeing is a central topic in all media outlets in Portugal, as all have their ‘refereeing experts’ commenting on the performances of the men with the whistle immediately after the matches.

Do the players feel intimidated by the referees? - we wanted to know.

“It's obvious that there is a lot of talk about refereeing, if it was a hand ball, if it wasn't a hand ball. Currently VAR has made it easier,” replied Eliseu. “When we are on the pitch, we don't worry about the referee. We only worry about playing and giving everything and putting the ball in the net, which is our objective.”

“Outside the pitch, our concern is to recover, train well, eat well, rest well, because for the stuff outside the pitch there are other people who worry about that, about the referees, about other outside-soccer issues,” he added. “That's why there are directors, presidents, we on the pitch just have to be focused on playing and giving our best.”

Isaías, on the other hand, has a somewhat different view.

“I suffered at the hands of the referees,” he said. “Benfica suffered at the hands of the referees. Everyone knows that the referees on the pitch looked down on us, especially on the Brazilians. Racism is something that will never end. As long as there is that emphasis... racism is not going to end in soccer. And there was racism with us - Brazilians and other foreigners.”

He went even further, saying that back then “there was a mafia refereeing in Portuguese soccer that benefited one team (FC Porto).”

“It was impossible for you to win there,” Isaías said. “You arrived, you worked, it was impossible. From the moment you stepped on the grass you were already disrespected. So much so that after a game we played there, I went on the radio, for the interview, and said ‘it's impossible for us to win here. We work all week to come here and try to play an even game, try to compete for the result, but it's impossible.’ Things were happening and these things later came to light, the famous ‘Golden Whistle’”.

The Golden Whistle was a sports corruption scandal in Portuguese soccer that first arose in 2004.

Several well-known soccer personalities were investigated for corrupting or attempting to corrupt referees, including the chairman of FC Porto and former Boavista FC chairman Valentim Loureiro.

‘The League Cup is also important’

For several years, some clubs treated the League Cup as a minor competition, but it seems that the situation has changed and recently it has become a desirable competition, even for the so-called 'big clubs' in Portuguese soccer.

For Eliseu, the League Cup is a title like any other.

“I celebrated all the titles I won at Benfica - League Cup, Portuguese Cup, Super Cup - as if it was the last one in my life,” he said. “It is another trophy for the history of Benfica and all the players who played in it will go down in history.”

Sporting Braga were an unexpected winner in last week’s final round, with Sporting and Benfica falling by the wayside. As a result, according to Eliseu, “the fans are a little upset, frustrated, which is normal.”

“They weren't expecting, at least not to be in the final,” he said. “But life goes on and there's still a lot of the season ahead. It's over, but the page has been turned.”

Ruben Amorim was a former teammate

First at Belenenses and then at Benfica, Eliseu was a teammate of Ruben Amorim, the young coach of Sporting, the current leader in Portugal’s first division.

He said he is not surprised by the success of his former colleague.

“It was already evident that he invested a lot on tactics, he was rarely badly out of position, he was reading the game far faster than his teammates,” Eliseu pointed out.

Eliseu also gave a preview of what he expects for the rest of the season in Portugal.

“Sporting are ahead, but the teams are a bit balanced,” he said. “FC Porto went through a bad stage, but they are winning games and Porto is a team that can never be left dead because suddenly they are resurrected from nowhere and they will give a lot of fight until the end of the year. Sporting are doing well - they are compact, they have an excellent coach, but the math is done at the end and I think that until the final game there will be a lot of points lost and a lot of points won.”

Isaías and the win over Arsenal in London

Former Brazilian striker Isaías went to Portugal to play for Rio Ave, then moved to Boavista and finally transferred to S. L. Benfica in 1988.

He was at Luz for four seasons, before becoming the first Brazilian to play in the Premier League. In 1995, mainly because of what he had done at Benfica, he signed for Coventry City.

He wore the Benfica jersey in 178 games, scored 71 goals, but one of the most iconic games of his career took place in London, on Nov. 6, 1991, in the second leg of the second round of the European Champions Cup.

In Lisbon, the teams had tied 1-1. So, Arsenal were almost a prohibitive favorite for the second leg at home.

“First, it was mind-blowing, no one believed it, not even the Arsenal fans believed that that result could happen, because Arsenal was a team full of great players,” Isaías recalled. “They were coming off a positive result with that draw at Luz. And I remember that in the first half it was a struggle. It really looked like Arsenal's cannon on top of the eagle and us trying to dodge it.”

Isaías had scored the goal at Estádio da Luz and he was the star again in London.

“I was fortunate to score a great goal, and the tie gave us a little more peace of mind to try to settle the game in extra time,” he recalled. “They wore themselves out so much in search of the second goal that they lost a little bit of gas. And we started to come to life because we felt that from one moment to the next we could turn the result around. In the second half of extra time, we managed to turn it around. We managed to get ahead and we got a brilliant win.”

Kulkov put Benfica in front in the extra time, Isaías closed out the scoring in the 3-1 victory and the excellent performance was recognized by the Arsenal fans themselves.

Isaías proudly recalls that “when the game was over, the Arsenal fans stood up and gave us a standing ovation because they saw a great game, they saw a team that deserved the result because we put our soul into that game.”

Benfica's coach at the time was the Swede Sven-Göran Eriksson, who is currently going through a very difficult period, as he revealed a few days ago that he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and may only have “one year to live”.

“As a coach, he already knew the club inside out and then he had a cohesive group that wanted to leave their names written in the history of SLB,” Isaías said. “When what is useful was added to what is pleasant, things naturally happened... the moments I had with him were wonderful. He wasn't much of a talker. He would arrive and give his tactics. All he had to do was say it, and we would go and put it into practice. Those two years I had with him were spectacular.”

Played with President Rui Costa

Rui Costa, Benfica’s current president, also played on that Benfica team.

Isaías believes his former teammate will have similar success as club president because of “the love and passion that he has for Benfica.”

“That's indisputable and he's already proven it,” he said. “In this first term, he's realizing and he's understanding what it's like to be a president. This year is the year of learning. He will gain experience and from there things will improve a lot because he is already aware of what is required to manage Benfica. Playing for Benfica is one thing, managing all that structure is another, and Rui Costa as president is a new guy. It will be a great success because he knows and loves the club.”

Adjustments complicate Roger Schmidt’s life

When he arrived at the beginning of last season, coach Roger Schmidt sent Benfica on a spectacular roll, winning the admiration of the fans, and also the title after a four-year hiatus. This year, the team has struggled to show the same quality of soccer.

Isaías believes the problem has to do with adjustments.

“The players who came in are going through that adaptation time, it's normal,” he said. “There's no way you can get there overnight. The kid from Santos (Marcos Leonardo) has arrived, and in two games he has already scored two goals... But he's going to have to adapt as well. Artur Cabral was criticized. Some Benfica fans spoke badly about him, but I know that the man is a great player. Benfica today doesn’t have the luxury of bringing just anyone. Today, they have the possibility to bring in great players and Artur is a great player. He proved himself wherever he went, but he needs time to adapt.”

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Benfica legends Isaías and Eliseu talk about careers, current status of soccer