90 Minutes

Hello my friend, Co Adriaanse. First of all, if you need a car, you can stop by my house and i'll lend you Kitt for a while.

On today's post i'm gonna explain to you how FCPorto should always play the game (and how has played in the past).
FCPorto would always start the games, from the first minute to the last, pressuring the other team. In fact, in the days of Frasco, André, Rui Barros, Pacheco, the pressure would be so high that in a large majority of the games, FCPorto would be winning in the first 20/30 minutes.
That's Porto. Pressure, Will, Strenght. When your team runs and battles atleast the same of what the other team does, the difference in skill will rise and the best team will emerge victorious.
Look at Barcelona. Tons of star players, but besides Ronaldinho (who runs a LOT in attacking plays while his friend at Real Madrid (fat ronaldo) doesn't run neither in defensive or offensive plays), every single player of that team gives 100%.
So, stop losing 45 minutes of the game. Start from minute one. I'm sure the players will follow your command. You are Co Adriaanse, destroyer and maker of Worlds.


P.S.: 3 defenders is for the Dutch League. You are in Portugal now. Stop making things harder.

A game for you, my friend!

My best friend, Mr. C0 Adriaanse,

Fc Porto is happily and comfortably on top of the betandwin league, the games ahead are easy enough and there is nothing to practice anymore!

So why don’t you reward yourself and the squad with another holiday period?

As I know you are bit stressful with global warming issues, I present you with a little something I think you will enjoy!

Follow this link http://en.freekick.uefa.com/freekick/en/en_terms.html and enjoy yourself!

Just choose YES and YES and confirm. Then pick GUEST, and you will find out about the importance of good free-kicking shooting! (*)

Something that you, the greatest coach ever, of course know for a long time!


Yours,

Angus MacGyver

(*) - If you really want to go deep on this, log in and you’ll see some great shots!

Firing Your Boss (*)

My best friend, Mr. C0 Adriaanse,

You probably remember my old boss at Phoenix Foundation Pete Thornton, who is also commonly known as my best friend, which obviously he was not, just because you are the one.

He was a great boss and even blind he was seeing a lot more then others… Maybe we ALL should learn a bit from him, as sometimes I see some substitutions that Pete would never miss!

But let me get to the point. Peter was not my first boss. I started my career being a plummer at City Hall, under Mr. Loureiro command. The Mayor, or Major (I still don’t know what to call him) was this funny character, dynamic and smart. But he was kind of corrupt, small minded, grotesque, surrounded by strange people, and lots of times completely loosing all focus of his job and responsabilities.

I did not want to be part of that, so I fired my boss!

So why don't you consider firing your boss? (*)

Best friends must be sincere and I have to say I do not like what his happening at FC Porto this last weeks… you see:

- They insist with this stupid discussion with benfica guys, specially this Reinaldo against the Veiga Boy. In no time some Estonian girls (with all do respect) will tell in the newspapers about the night they spent with both of them at Little Star Pension.
- Jorge Costa is out and it seems they wanted this way – reading what they say about book’s preface… but that was something you helped happen, just for fun.
- They’ll loose Vítor Baía as a player and a club milestone, something you helped happen just for fun.
- They say Postiga is no good and in December they needed a striker, something you helped happen just for fun.
- They find it acceptable to be out of Champions League after 1st round, that thing you did just for fun.
- They don’t get mad if you, just for fun, say that loosing at AmateurStars 2-1 was not a bad result…
- So many many other things…

So do you want to stay connected to these people?

So why aren't you firing your boss? (*)

This guy did it and he’s doing quite ok…


Yours,

Angus MacGyver

(*) - in the end of the season, please.

Poll results and new poll

Hello Mr Adriaanse and fellow Adriaanse fans. This were the results for the first poll on this site:

As you can all see, with a spanking 62%, All of the Above won the poll. I couldn't agree more with the outcome of this poll.
There's a new poll on the site now. "How long should Co coach Porto?" is the new theme. Please vote and leave your comments on the news posts.

On a side note, rumours have it that Co Adriaanse ran the 100 meters in 7,5 seconds on the past monday Porto's training session.

P.Emanuel, Diego, P.Assunção, Benched.

Click here for the news post.

Enjoy Portuguese Wine!

My best friend, Mr. C0 Adriaanse,

Amazingly you are still suspended for another week. So, being football issues not a worry – FC Porto is playing lovely, achieving crashing victorious – I invite you to know a bit more of Portugal.

Let me present you to Portuguese wines – one of the most important traditions of this country. I learned about them when I was in holidays with Nikki Carpenter in Foz Coa. Those were the days…
I even drew our names in the rocks there! Some years after some Portuguese government recognized my talent and cancelled their plans for a dam there!

"The Portuguese wines are part of ancient traditions inserted in the region firstly by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Greeks. Long before the Roman rule over the region, who will also substantially influence in wine production. During this era, is where the Portuguese wines started to be exported to Rome. Today, Portugal is a traditional wine grower with 8% of its continental land dedicated to winery! "

My favorite wines come from vineyards that grow in the Douro valley. From those I really enjoy “Cabeça de Burro” just because “the taste is round in your mouth, reinforcing the sensations the aroma gives you. It's also well structured with really soft tannin that contributes to his global balance".

I deeply recommend you to try this “Cabeça de Burro”, this wine is sooooo you!

So try it and leave the traditional dutch dope! At least that way you won’t take those "stoned decisions" like:
- playing with 3 defences;
- leaving Emanuel, Diego and Assunção at the bench;
- replacing Baía after ONE poor game, sending the wrong signal to the squad an ruining his 400th game party;
- letting Alan on pitch more then 45 minutes;
- well, you know better than me what dutch dope can make to your brain…


Yours,

Angus MacGyver

Welcome to Portugal

Hello Mister Adriaanse. I know this comes in a bit late but... it's never too late.
Welcome to Portugal.

Don't get me wrong. I love Portuguese people, especially the ones on the north side of the Douro river. But there's something really wrong with this country. Really, really wrong.

First of all, don't get me wrong. This doesn't happen only in football. Happens in everything. Basically, if by chance you were born or work for anything Lisbon related, you have a "get out of jail free pass". It's pretty sad but that's how it works.
For example, that clown that manages Naval spent the whole of the last season, as the second coach of benfica, shouting all kinds of things at the refs (all kinds of things but not "It's a foul!", that's for sure) and nothing happened. You on the other hand shout "it's a foul!!" when a Naval defender almost ripped Cechs foot off, and you get 15 days of suspension.
For example, Costinha makes a nasty gesture towards the crowd (he grabbed his own testicles) on Guimaraes, and gets 2 games suspension (fair enough). Nuno Gomes makes a gesture that implies that Nem and the Braga players use drugs to intensify their capabilities and... gets a money fine that will prolly mean he won't go to the hairdresser 20 times this week, only 19.

So now you know how the country works. I am very sorry for the lateness on warning you about this.


Enough about this matter. Let me remind you of a few things for the next game on saturday:

a) Adriano scored 2 goals on his debut. Even if he can only last one half, field him on the lineup. Better to have him scoring soon then rushing for a late goal that may never come.
b) How about fielding Helder Barbosa?.

The Duct Tape Enigma

Dear Mr. Adriaanse, my best friend,

I confess I was a bit puzzled on your latest comments after Sunday’s funny effort to bring some emotion to the Betadine League.

I really didn’t understand what was crossing your mind saying that loosing with AmateurStars was not a bad result.

Gosh! You are so ingenious! I suddenly realize you just were paying tribute to me, this old and faithful friend of yours!

Forgive me if this was meant to be only an internal joke, but I will try to explain mortals what has happened, just because I am your best friend, Don Adriaanse King of Iberia.

As you all know I am widely known to make the day using some trivial materials. One of my favourites is Duct Tape as you can see here and I am the old member of the The Great Duct Tape Hall of Fame (which by the way is in decline because of this and this).

Being obviously victorious against Naval already twice this year (playing away!) Mr. Co decided to raise the stake and now he wants to win Saturday, managing the FC Porto squad silently.

As SAD board dumbly wouldn’t understand the challenge, the only way Mr. Co had to spice up Saturday’s game was forcing SAD to act like White House officials towards George W. Bush, also paying tribute to me, “this non-violent conflict resolution action hero”, as you can see above…

Hope the SAD understands your will and act like they should, and use the Duct Tape!


Yours,

Angus MacGyver

Blog Updates

Just a quick post to warn our visitors about the two new "features" on the site:

- There's a poll on the bottom of the right menu now. Go ahead and vote.
- Everyone is free to comment now. Registration is not required.

Also, as you probably have noticed by now - if you are a regular visitor - this blog is updated quite often, so add us to your bookmarks.

Rumours that i have been posting on this blog while working on the Knight Foundation are totally false, i swear.

I confess – “It was my entire fault!”

Today the planet woke up confused, astonished and insecure.

The Sun is shy and people are looking above trying to understand this “brave new world”. Children are still staring at their parents with hardly-held tears, demanding an answer, suffering with this painful question:

Has Adriaanse lost it?
What has happened yesterday at the Porcalhota Swamp?

As everyone knows I am Mr. Adriaanse best friend and my second best friend is the world.
Sometimes I try the two of them to get along, so I have to confess – it was my entire fault…

I admit I often abuse Mr. Co greatness, capacity, creativity and geniality to save the free world, helping me on my daily tasks. That was why I asked him to help me on something very important.

The truth is that Mister Co spent all week working on a new cheap and ecologic power source and had no time to plan yesterday’s game.

So it’s not his fault that FC Porto players went to the pitch knowing less than nothing about the opposite side. Probably they weren't respecting the rival as they were called AmateurStars, which could be a great internet website, but even if you are the best army – which they are not – commanded by the best of the generals – which they are – you could be surprised!

So, if anyone is thinking that Mr. Co should have briefed FC Porto players:
- about Manu or Semedo moves;
- on AmateurStars dynamics, specially on the need of fill spaces between midfield and defence; they are not very skilled but they are quick and organized;
- about the need of having some strong men above, as the AmateurStars defenders are some suburban remake of King Kong;
- on the nonsense of stupid foot goal-keeping;
- about how they should organize attack as so well my almost best friend Michael Knight well stated below;
- about other stuff that clearly shows Mr. Co was not able to prepare the game…

So if you heretically think on some mishandling of Mr. Co just forget that because it was my entire fault, I led Mr. Adriaanse towards other paths…

So forgive me as I have sinned…

Yours,

Angus MacGyver

P.S. – The fact that AmateurStars played more or less the same way at the Dragon, almost achieving a good result had a similar explanation. At that time Mr Co Adriaanse was helping Michael Knight on some Rebecca Holden hormonal problems and it was his holographic replica that sat at the bench that day… That’s why Fc Porto WAS NOT ABLE TO LEARN A SINGLE THING from that game…

Michael Knight to the Rescue

Hello Mister Co. I saw your cry for help on the first half of the last Porto game and here i am.

I'm going to explain you something - that i am sure you obviously know, but you probably forgot because you have too much on your mind, like re-inventing football, world peace, space travel, etc:
Personally, i love football with wingers. I think that's how the game is meant to be played. Open, wide, with 2 wingers stretching the field and creating spaces. The thing is my friend, having no striker makes the 2 wingers work totally useless. It's like if i install 2 new machine guns on Kitt, but with no ammunition. Pointless.
Lisandro is no striker and today, Lisandro is nothing at all. I know that you would rather burn all of Holland's Windmills than field Hugo Almeida in the first team, but as much as i hate to admit it, you have to do it (atleast untill Adriano can play). At least he battles for the space and stays on the striker place, while Lisandro runs like a headless chicken everywhere (everywhere but the Striker position).
Yes, i know H.Almeida is an aberration. But if you field the 2 wingers, you need someone there. Or else you will have the wingers crossing and Lucho showing up at the first post, letting the ball go so someone can finish off the play. That happened sometimes on the first half, with no one finishing, because the STRIKER needs to go for the first ball and Lucho is the one that needs to show up from behind.
And that's why having Hugo Almeida is better (or less bad) than having no real striker figure at all.
Atleast untill Adriano can play.

But you knew this, you were just busy with other things.

Diego, a fallen angel

Last Monday I had this normal, routine day...
I was chasing Mr. Amonia – a wicked psychopath that last year wanted to poison all public water in San Diego – and I suddenly tripped on this racoon hole and I quickly tasted grass…

“Luckily” (heroes like me and Mr. Adriaanse are not lucky, we are talented) my Swiss army knifed shot from my hand catching evil Amonia right in the spinal cord, paralysing him…
With the game against Boavista still in my mind, it came to me:

DIEGO KNOWS HOW TO DO IT!

Well not really Diego, you still need someone else to take the free kick, but I suddenly realise that FC Porto could use this strategy to get 1 more goal/game.

Mr. Adriaanse, your friend MacGyver is kindly asking you to think on the possibility of making Diego play a bit advanced. A bit nearer to the box, where we could be fouled enough to get some nice free kicks, pick some yellow cards… or even a penalty!

Nahhhh it is not that pretty to win on a penalty kick…


Yours,

Angus MacGyver


P.S.
I will be back to the Diego theme in the future, I think that is not playing exactly on the right position, but of course it is Diego fault… he is always running away from the ball... chicken Diego!

Short Corners

Hello Mr. Adriaanse. Put the clogs and take a walk with me on the subject of short corners.
FCPorto corner taking this season is a vast improvement from the past years - another display of tactical mastery by Holland's finest. But i think we can still improve on that matter.

You have to totally forbid the use of short corners. I must have seen 50000000 short corners in my life (Kitt usually records the games for me when i'm busy saving the world) half of them taken by Deco. Of those 50000000, 50% end with the defense blocking the play. 49% of those end with a dangerous counter attack and 1% end in Goal.

You can easily see - since you even taught Mathematics to Einstein back in the day - that it doesn't compensate the risk.

So forbid the taking of short corners and punish whoever goes against your rules (the Whip comes in mind).

This is the final step. Everything else is perfect right now - because it's not your fault when a player fails the shot.

My Best friend!

Hello Mr Adriaanse!
I am MacGyver and I am your best friend.
Obviously you remember me!
In the late 80’s I was the guy solving all the crises with a late “hat-trick”, so I became very handy to the world.
More or less an intelligent version of Quaresma, and a little less gipsy!
My best friend, now you have not one but three guys giving you the edge!

Angus MacGyver and Michael Knight are here to help you.


Disclaimer:
One month ago we declined a 5 billion dollars/season contract from Abramovich because we think the guy that works for him doesn’t have the potential. Besides he’s not our friend!

Adriaanse Best Friend

Welcome to home of Adriaanse Best Friend. I am Michael Knight.
This is an introductory post to the full purpose of this blog. Myself and MacGyver are Co Adriaanse's best friends. That's a fact. We are going to help him make our favourite team - FCPorto - the best team in the world. He really doesn't need our help, but we are so kind in our hearts that we feel we have to give all the insight we can to make his job easier.
Anyway, i hope you enjoy this Co, since it's for you. For the general readers here i leave you with a small FAQ about this site:


Q.: Does Co Adriaanse really need help?
A.: No he doesn't. We are just being kind.

Q.: Did Co Adriaanse really invent Football?
A.: Yes he did. When he was 20 years old he invented a Time Machine that ported him back in time to invent football.

Q.: Are MacGyver and Michael Knight really fans of FC Porto?
A.: Yes they are. Whenever MacGyver isn't saving the world with a piece of wire, a can of baked beans and chewing gum he can be seen rooting for Porto at the Dragon Stadium. Michael Knight usually watches the games from a mini screen on Kitt.


Enjoy the blog.