After the good previous season, there were concerns about the new coach, as the successful Luís Castro left to join Chaves. However, if anything, the team got even better with the arrival of Miguel Cardoso, who implemented an attractive football mentality that conquered the whole country and made them some sort of pet team for neutrals to cheer for.
Sure there were times when their ambitious style didn’t match their reality when they tried to play face-on-face with the big league bullies, but that was considerably compensated by the way the team managed to combine the attractiveness of their style to the competitiveness that allowed them to end in the best place ever in their history.
Rio Ave’s boldness and insistence in playing from the back cost them a few matches. When looking at the final numbers, the 13 defeats are almost up there with the 15 victories. But this was the risk assumed by Miguel Cardoso, who would rather pick a win in every two games than to fight for a draw in most of the times. Also, the project was to show to the country that a well played style can still have good, practical results. And all that with a squad that was not considered at first to be a particularly strong one.
Even if Rio Ave picked almost the exact same amount of points in both halves of the season, the first part was the most memorable one.
And mostly due to the fact that Rúben Ribeiro was leading the team into excellent attacking performances. The 30 years old attacking midfielder had such a great season at that time that Sporting didn’t hesitate in signing him in in January, despite his age. Rio Ave was unable to replicate the overwhelming quality in their attacks after the departure of Rúben Ribeiro, but their competence was not overly shaken. An inconsistent, yet highly talented Francisco Geraldes, a slightly less talented but much more composed João Novais and a great dynamic duo in the centre made of the experienced skipper Tarantini and the rejuvenated Pelé stepped in to make up for the absence of the star of the team during the first half of the season. Guedes prolific goalscoring form and Marcelo’s safety at the back played big parts of Rio Ave’s success as well.
