With summer signings Eric Bailly (Villarreal, Spain) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Paris Saint-Germain) instrumental in United’s 2-1 victory over Leicester City and the arrival of €110m Pogba, there are sure to be great expectations of major honours from the ‘Special One’.
Since 2010, the winners of the Community Shield have failed to win the Premier League in the following season, so can Mourinho break the hoodoo?
Whilst Mourinho was splashing the cash, Benfica were making a cool €45m net profit following the sale of Renato Sanches (Bayern Munich), Nico Gaitán (Atlético Madrid) and former Manchester United reject Bebé (SD Eibar, Spain).
New arrivals at the Stadium of Light include Franco Cervi & Junior (Argentina), the Peruvian, André Carrillo (Sporting Lisbon), Danilo (on-loan SC Braga), Andrija Živkovic (Partizan Belgrade, Serbia) and Guillermo Celis from Colombia (Junior FC).
Only eight of this season’s Benfica 33-man first team squad are Portuguese with fourteen nations being represented on the roster! In the SuperCup it was mainly one way traffic and with only ten minutes on the clock debutant Franco Cervi weaved his way through a static Braga backline before slotting the ball past Carlos Marafona.
Late goals from Jonas (75’) and Pizzi (92’) sealed a comfortable victory. Although this was the Eagles eighth Supertaça Candido de Oliveira title in its thirty-six year history, they still languish well behind FC Porto who have won the prestigious trophy on twenty occasions.