Neither Sporting Lisbon, FC Porto or Vitória Guimarães took maximum points as they all settled for 1-1 draws.
Benfica travelled to Aveiro to take on Arouca where a sell-out crowd was treated to a game packed full of incident and chances. Roberto netted the all-important goal after just four minutes and proved to be a handful for Luisão and Lisandro López until he was replaced with fifteen minutes to go.
Benfica keeper Júlio César made three superb saves to keep them in a game, in which they had 65 percent possession and a staggering nineteen efforts on goal! Ola John, Jonas, Pizzi, Gaitán, Mitroglou and second-half substitute, Raúl Jiménez were denied by Arouca’s Brazilian goalkeeper, Rafael Bracali which rightly earned him the ‘Man of the Match’ award.
This was Arouca’s first win over the Eagles and takes them top with maximum points following on from their 2-0 win at Moreirense the previous weekend.
Sporting looked to be on the right track against Paços de Ferreira when Carrillo gave them the lead, just prior to the break, from a Bryan Ruiz cross. Ruiz, who was transferred from Fulham FC in the summer, may have had his critics in English football but he has settled into life in Portugal very quickly. Alberto Aquilani, signed earlier this month from Italian club Fiorentina, made his debut for Sporting and the former Liverpool player showed some deft touches.
Despite enjoying the lion’s share of possession, Sporting were unable to turn that into chances as play swung from end-to-end. High drama came ten minutes from time when Sporting’s João Pereira was sent-off for bringing down Pelé in the box.
Pelé, on loan from Benfica, got up and brushed himself down before dispatching the resulting spot-kick to earn the northerners an impressive point.
FC Porto had failed to beat Marítimo in Madeira for the last four seasons and the winless run was set to continue. The Dragons got off to a terrible start in Funchal when Edgar Costa scored for the Madeirans after just five minutes with a free-header at the back post.
Cissokho, on loan from Aston Villa and making his debut for Porto, completely missed the cross and Casillas was left powerless from close range. The visitors levelled matters ten minutes before the interval when Brahimi and Imbula combined to tee up Herrera to easily beat keeper Salin from close range. Both sides had chances in the second-half, none more so than Porto’s Maxi Pereira who hit the crossbar at the end of four minutes of stoppage time.
Rio Ave beat SC Braga thanks to a superb in-swinging free-kick by Bressan which found the Egyptian striker Hassan. His powerful header flew past Kritciuk, in the Braga goal, to seal all three points.
Lisbon’s third Primeira Liga side Belenenses has had an auspicious start to the season. Following their 2-1 aggregate win against Gothenburg in the third qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League they are on the verge of reaching the group stage. Last night (Thursday) they will have hoped to build on their single goal away win in Austria against SC Rheindorf Altach last week.
At the weekend they travelled to Vitória Guimarães and in extremely wet conditions were happy with a 1-1 draw. Ricardo Valente fired the home side ahead after twenty minutes with Fábio Sturgeon equalising for Belenenses fifteen minutes from time.