One might say that Setúbal had a soft ride, this season. Sadinos had some good moments intercalated by some brief streaks of defeats, in a harmonious fashion that kept them in the mid table positions from beginning to end. Relegation was seldom a possible scenario, while the European spots never seemed to attract them too much either. This average steady performance allowed Sadinos to be one of the very few teams that only had one coach the entire season. José Couceiro’s men even had the merits of being this season’s troublemakers for the heavy weights of the league, having been undefeated in the four matches against the first two teams of the table, Porto and Benfica. Setúbal was in fact the team that took more points from champions Benfica in the entire league, having tied at Estádio da Luz and taken all three points in the clash at Bonfim.
One of last season’s most influential player, midfielder Fábio Pacheco, had an early severe injury that took him off from most part of the season. João Costa (Costinha) had to step up and be one of the most important pieces in Setúbal’s midfield, forming a good pair with Nigerian dynamo Mikel Agu. At the back, some young talents showed their ability, such as Vasco Fernandes and Nuno Pinto and Frederico Venâncio. And incident with Sporting (perhaps motivated by Setúbal knocking Leões off Taça de Portugal) led two important players at that time to leave the club (midfielder Ryan Gauld and full-back André Geraldes) but, on the counter-part, Benfica loaned talented João Carvalho, who had a great second half of the season. Experienced Edinho surprised by still being able to lead Setúbal’s attack and scoring 9 goals, well assisted by talented winger João Amaral. However, probably the most consistent player during the entire season was goalkeeper Bruno Varela who showed very safe hands every time he was called on duty.
