Football Season Guide

A good season granted CS Maritimo a place in this campaign's qualification rounds for the Europa League where they are one game away from progressing into the group stages. Os Verde-Rubros want to keep up with the good momentum and re-establish themselves as a good Portuguese second line team, after the "Big Three", and keep reaching European competitions. One of the rivals for that goal, Braga, took away arguably the three most important players of last season's squad: centre-half Raúl Silva, highly influential central midfielder Fransérgio, and star striker Diego Sousa. Full-back Patrick Vieira also left to join Benfica (who loaned him out to Paços). The biggest challenge for Marítimo will be to properly replace these players and keep up with the level. While replacing Dyego Sousa might not be too hard because they already coped without him last season – Dyego was given a 9 months suspension, so Marítimo had to replace him in the middle of the campaign with Alhassane Keita, who already showed he can do the job. Replacing Fransérgio might prove to be a challenge though. The Brazilian midfielder was Marítimo's most influential player of the last couple of seasons. Fábio Pacheco, arriving from a not so positive season at Setúbal is a candidate for the role while Fabrício Baiano came directly from Brazil and is an unknown player in Portugal. Winger, Ricardo Valente, will be hoping to prove his value while at Madeira. Coach, Daniel Ramos, should keep his 4-2-3-1 with Keita leading the attack. The most important “new” name for the new season will be the return of Ghazaryan, who spent a significant part of last season out with injury. Together with Edgar Costa, the Armenian should be one of the most important pieces of the attack.