Imortal Football Club Albufeira 2026 - 2027

Imortal 3 -2 Santa Clara B

Not a good performance, by any means! The visitors played with ten men after 17 minutes following the harsh sending off their goalkeeper. Imortal lost the ball too often in midfield, were often poor in defence especially for the second goal and were it not for two amazing misses and two really good saves by Inacio, could well have been beaten.

The pitch was dry and bumpy, the clouds were gathering for this morning kickoff and it started raining quite hard around half-time. Crowd was small. 11am kick-offs are neither a player's or fan's favourite, but necessary to accommodate the travel for the opponents from mid-Atlantic. Santa Clara are based in the Azores, which are about the same distance from Albufeira as London!

Leading scorer Mario Duarte was on the bench, leaving Diogo Cabral on his own up front, supported by Pimenta and Baiao coming from midfield. Santa Clara brought Inacio into action early on, his parried save was returned but went just over the bar.

In the 17th minutes, Imortal broke down the left, their keeper Carlos Neves came steaming out of the penalty area to take out Baiao. There were two defenders behind him, we thought the sending off harsh. So, they were down to ten men. Imortal had a chance to take the lead, but Floro could only head over from a cross by Prates. After half an hour, the wind was getting stronger ahead of the rain. Santa Clara won a free kick wide right. Samuel Velho caught it just right, the ball sailing over everyone to find the far bottom corner of the net.

Imortal did respond, Cabral should have better with a shot on the turn, Pimenta had a tame shot drift wide.

Five minutes before half time a seemingly innocuous attack was ended with Baiao being needlessly barged over in the penalty area. No complaints from the opposition, other than cross looks from his team-mates. Baiao stepped up to take the penalty - video clip at https://youtu.be/_DM6TpEA9Gw thanks to Geoff. There was just time before the interval for Cabral to be denied by a decent save from the sub. goalkeeper Roxo.

The rain was coming down when the second half eventually began at about ten past 12. Imortal went straight into the attack and for once caused chaos in the visitors defence. Cabral got onto the end of a cross, his header was not exactly top-drawer but fell kindly at the feet of Rodrigo Silva, who slammed it in at close range. Goalkeeper José Roxo was once more rather angry at his static defenders.

A few minutes later, Santa Clara really should have scored. A swift counter-attack caught Imortal's midfield and defence half asleep. Osvaldo Miranda and Velho broke clear and were in front of Inacio, otherwise free and poised to score. all they had to do was keep calm, but they didn't and the final pass went behind Velho when all he to do was tap it in. Defenders were getting back then. A huge sigh of relief among the home fans.

Rodrigo Silva was on the scoresheet for the second time on 68 minutes, finishing off a good move involving Mica Silva and Prates. That was followed by more chaos in the Imortal defence, Dias and Inacio not communicating, requiring Inacio to dive bravely at onrushing feet and getting hurt in the process.

The game got messy after that, with four yellow cards dished out to Santa Clara players in the space of ten minutes. Five added minutes were announced, Imortal were on the back foot to the ten men, who were rewarded with a late goal by José Franco's swift movement among leaden footed defenders.

All in all three points is three points, lifting Imortal back into second place. But they must be better.

The eccentric fixture list has no game for Imortal next weekend, because it's Internationals! I wonder how many players the part-time Portuguese fourth division contributes?

Imortal's next game is in the Algarve Cup, a second round match away at Portimonense SC. They are the 'amateur' part of Portimonense, playing in the Algarve league at the training ground out near Praia da Rocha. That's currently scheduled for 1500hrs / 3pm on Sunday 22nd November. Imortal's next home game won't be until 6th December.

Imortal team : Inacio; Prates, Dias, Gonçalves, Floro; Nascimento, Pimenta, Baiao, Rodrigo Silva, Mica Silva; Cabral. Subs used Welson Lopes, Diogo Silva and Luis Silveira.

match stats

Free kicks conceded : Imortal 11, Santa Clara 18 plus the penalty.
Offside: Imortal 1, Santa Clara 2
Shots on target : Imortal 5, Santa Clara 4
Shots off target : Imortal 4, Santa Clara 2
Shots blocked : Imortal 0, Santa Clara 1
Corners : Imortal 4, Santa Clara 4
Yellow cards : Imortal 2, Santa Clara 7 plus we think one of their coaching staff.