Football Season Guide

Liga
Portugal
Liga
2018/2019
Vitoria de Guimaraes
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Vitoria de Guimaraes

In


Dodô (def)(Shaktar Donetsk, UKR - on loan), Rafa Soares (def)(Portimonense), Florent Hanin (def)(Belenenses), F. Venâncio (def)(Vit. Setúbal), Y. Osorio (def)(FC Porto - on loan), João Carlos Teixeira (mid)(Braga), Tozé (mid)(Moreirense - return from loan), André André (mid)(FC Porto), Pepê Rodrigues (mid)(Benfica - on loan), Alexandre Guedes (att)(Desp. Aves), Tyler Boyd (att)(Tondela - return from loan), Ola John (mid/att)(Benfica), Davidson (att)(Chaves)

Out


João Vigário (sp)(def)(Estoril - on loan), G. Konan (r)(def)(Reims, FRA), João Aurélio (sp)(def)(Feirense), Jubal (r)(def)(Arouca - return from loan), Rafael Miranda (r)(mid)(end of contract), Marcos Valente (sp)(def)(Paços de Ferreira - on loan), Sturgeo (mid/att)(Feirense), Moreno (sp)(def)(retired), Mattheus (r)(mid)(end of loan contract), Heldon (r)(att)(end of loan contract), P. Hurtado (k)(mid)(Konyaspor, TUR)

Guimarães fans are about the fiercest and most demanding ones round the country, and they were certainly not happy with last season’s performance. A 9th place is never a good place to end a season, for Vimaranenses, specially after such a promising season only one year before. Worst of all, an unforgettable home 0-5 disgrace against the arch rivals Braga will forever taint the memory of the fans. Therefore, this season will be of utmost importance. The board seems very much aware of it and reserved a significant focus into forming a strong group for the season. The most significant new face is the one of the new gaffer. Luís Castro arrives at Guimarães for arguably his biggest challenge of his career, so far. After highly promising and competent works at Rio Ave and Chaves, where he managed to combined a good, attractive, dominant attacking football with very interesting results, Castro is expected to provide success to Guimarães, this time. To help Luís Castro in his hard job, the board provided him some good new players that will form a squad that will be visibly more reliable than last year’s. The squad is, however, quite new as many first team member of last season went elsewhere. Starman Raphinha joined Sporting after a deal made already in January; the other reference of last season’s squad, attacking midfielder Paolo Hurtado also left to join turkish football. Heldon and Mattheus returned to Sporting, after a loan spell. And some other players like Rafael Miranda, João Aurélio and Jubal will no longer be around. However, these last ones wouldn’t be as important as they were previously, as the current squad brings other type of solutions. Osorio and Venâncio in the centre of defence, Hanin and Rafa Soares for the left side and youngster Dodô for the right are already a great visit card from Guimarães to show from their summer moves on the market. Prodigal son André André will be providing the habitual hard work while talented J.C. Teixeira is expected to have his confirmation season. Alexandre Guedes might find in Luís Castro the ideal manager to explore his good skills as central forward. The spotlights will however be pointing for Ola John. The Dutch never lived to the hype at Benfica, but now in a club like Guimarães, his potentially massive talent might finally explode for good.

Target


Fans won’t be happy with anything less than a 5th place. While losing the race to arch-rivals Braga might never be easy to swallow, they will have to accept that their neighbours are a few notches higher than Guimarães at this point, so anything better than the 5th place might be unrealistic, too. So, all in all, the 5th place is indeed the expected spot for Vimaranenses to finish at.