PORTUGAL: Pre-Season Fixture List (Brighton, Olhanense, PSG and... Crawley Town??!)

[PortuGull]

View attachment Portugal pre-season 2011-2012.pdf

This pdf file is the pre-season fixture list as of 10/07 for all games featuring portuguese sides, published daily in the "RECORD" sports newspaper in Portugal.

Brighton's game against Olhanense shows up on 23/07, with no KO time yet decided. A couple of other games that may be of interest:

Olhanense play Crawley Town at the same stadium Brighton will use, on Monday 11/07 at 17:00 - I'll try and go to this match just to check-out Brighton's opposition.

Benfica will play PSG on Friday, 15/07, KO 20:45 at the Algarve Stadium near Faro (This stadium was purpose built for EURO 2004, and is the best stadium in the Algarve). This match should be worth going to if anyone arrives in Portugal early, both to check out PSG and to compare the Algarve Stadium to the AMEX.

 

[PortuGull]

Final Score: OLHANENSE 2 -1 CRAWLEY TOWN (HT 0-1)

This match was played at the Colinas Verdes Golf Resort & Hotel near the village of Maragota, about 10 kms East of Olhao. They have a brand new football pitch, nicely turfed, but with absolutely no permanent facilities of any kind - no stands, no seats, no dugouts, They were selling cold beer for 1.50 Euros from a trailer, and there was one chemical toilet. Access was via a dirt track about one mile from the main hotel building.

Although the portuguese press continue to print every day that Brighton's match against Olhanense is also to be played at Maragota, I found out at the Crawley match that this is (thankfully) NOT true - Brighton's match will be held at Olhanense's home ground, the "Jose Arcanjo" Stadium in Olhao, but the kick-off time is still not decided.

For Brighton's match there will be 1000 souvenir programmes on sale for 2 Euros each, 100 souvenir scarves (on one side Olhanense v Brighton with date and venue, on the other the British and Portuguese flags) I think 10 Euros each, and also a beer holder/cooler. The package deal gets you all 3 items for 11 Euros.

Back to the Crawley game - Kuipers played only the 1st half and kept a clean sheet, including one miraculous save, tipped onto the crossbar and post. Ben Smith put Crawley ahead midway through the half. It was all change for the 2nd half, as only 2 Crawley players didn't get a game because of minor injuries. Olhanense scored twice in 6 minutes midway through the 2nd half, but Crawley had several good chances to score and looked useful. Think they should do well in League 2 on this showing. Olhanense looked much the same standard as Portimonense did last year against Brighton. Heard a group of portuguese press and photographers discussing Brighton's abandoned match last year, and wondering whether Olhanense would also be on the receiving end of Brighton's "dirty" play this year...

 

[PortuGull]

Transport to Olhanense Game

I am in Portugal already, with car, and have room to take up to 4 people to the Olhanense game. I am staying in Quarteira, right next to the Bus Station. So from Albufeira you could take a bus to Quarteira (cheap) or share a taxi for about 22 - 25 Euros on the meter. Same for return trip. Taxi rank is also right next to the Bus Station in Quarteira

Anyone interested?