2.8 The Story of Alcochete: Guess Who

To recap our last post we focused solely on the testimony of Nuno Mendes, better known as Mustafá. He told us he had no idea of how either Válter Semedo or Tiago Silva ended up getting involved on any level with the invasion of Alcochete. He surmised that what happened at the Funchal airport with Fernando Mendes has been the spark. He also said something else very telling and I wonder if any of you picked up on what that was, we shall soon find out…

I think we can definitively say we've drawn a line under Nuno Mendes alleged involvement as the mastermind of the attacks that took place at Alcochete on May the 15th, 2018. Well that's two posts with a neat finish to them at least. However it did actually bring up a new problem. Because just when I thought I was riding the horse back out of town it appears that actually I am no further forward in the story at all. In fact I've been leading you all down another garden path and once again it wasn't intentional I promise. Because remember we started this series with Bruno de Carvalho's point about the two Mendes' having a falling out? We know that Fernando Mendes was there on the day of the attacks. We knew he had a vendetta against Marcus Acuña. We know there's a reason that they didn't ask permission to attend Alcochete, simply because it wouldn't have been given. We know that Tiago Silva had a vendetta against Battaglia, that he was also there. We have the three WhatsApp groups where everything was planned. It was all going so well until the Nuno Mendes testimony which frankly has scuppered everything.

Remember how Mustafá makes a telling remark about not knowing who most of the defendants there were? Somewhere in another post I made light of the fact this was labelled as a Juve Leo led attack. But that was always misleading. Because whilst 14 members were ultimately caught up in it, the attacks actually in the main came from the casuals that no one has made any light of until Mustafá points them out. He tellingly says that he doesn't think the actual person behind the attacks has been arrested. At no point does he point the finger at Fernando Mendes for being the mastermind, although he goes as far to say that he might have been the fuse. So actually that June 2018 headline about Fernando Mendes was a red herring. *Beep, beep, beep, this writer is reversing. 

This isn't a Juve Leo story, the attacks weren't authorised by Nuno Mendes, but there is a link. The judge asks the question about the links between Válter Semedo and the casuals. And so it appears the story, within the story has actually just become the story, within the story, within the story. Nuno Mendes, the man pillared for everything, it appears is the smartest man in the room and should have been put in charge of the prosecution. Not only is he the only man who could have prevented it, but he's probably the only man who would have been capable of getting to the bottom of everything that happened through his connections with the fans. Now I don't want to make the leap from casuals, an unknown actual mastermind and a plot to take down Bruno de Carvalho, but that's what he was hinting at wasn't he? 

My evening just got worse. Sporting lost the Taça de Portugal final, West Ham got relegated courtesy of a João Palhinha goal and now this. Football can fuck off. I was done with it all. I was out then they pulled me back in. Pretty sure that's a paraphrased quote from the Godfather which I suppose segues into the fact there's normally someone at the top pulling the strings that have distanced themselves from it all.

So in Mustafá's testimony he's alluding to the fact that Válter Semedo had a choice. He could continue what he was doing as part of the Juve Leo or he could get sucked into the underground world of the casuals and the darker side. Casuals was originally the term used here in the UK in the early 70s until the government relabelled misbehaving fans as hooligans and as a country we've never got past that trap or reset the terminology. Casuals gained their name from the casual clothing they wore on matchdays which meant the police in theory couldn't identify them en route to games. Casuals have over the years attempted various ways to avoid the eyes of the law. I forget whose firm it was that dressed up in wedding gear, all suited and booted to avoid detection. Seems a bit over the top but you've clearly got to adapt to the times. 

So the question is are we about to unearth the real mastermind/s behind the attack with the next testimony to be heard? Or is there something that we're all still missing? 

If it wasn't Bruno de Carvalho, in the kitchen with the rolling pin, nor Nuno Mendes in the library with a knife, or Bruno Jacinto in the bathroom with a candlestick, could it have been…

Válter Semedo

It seems very late in the day to be including the testimony of Válter Semedo into the equation and in fairness there’s some very simple reasons for it. It was delivered after Nuno Mendes testimony and we've only just covered his testimony in series two. Also using Occam's razor once more - we deduce that more simply it's because I've only just read it. Moreover, the story has always surrounded the main perceived main protagonists, your Bruno de Carvalho’s, Nuno Mendes, Fernando Mendes et al. No one has ever really mentioned Válter Semedo and it was only in my summarising of what I felt should have been done and adding his name that I thought here’s another loose thread I’ve pulled at, perhaps I should have written him in at some point sooner. Yes that's right I'd pretty much gotten to the finish, or at least thought I had, then went bollocks.

Semedo is known for being one of the two main lieutenants of the Juve Leo under Mustafá and remember the assumption of the GNR was that it was for this reason when they both appeared in the WhatsApp groups that the leader must have known and in turn given permission for it to have gone ahead.

Semedo gave his evidence at the 34th session. 

He admits to being the person who created the WhatsApp group Academia Amanhã (Academy Tomorrow) and to having been a member of all the three groups to include those of Piranhas on Tour and Exército Invencível (Invincible Army).

It's noted that alongside being trusted by Nuno Mendes prior to Alcochete, he's also a personal friend of William Carvalho. 

JP: “Are you from Juve Leo?”

VS: “Yes, I am.”

JP: “Did you have any role in Juve Leo?"

VS: "Just a member."

JP: "Did you sell tickets?"

VS: "It wasn't exactly a function, but organising, yes…"

JP: "Was it just that issue, the tickets?"

VS: "I was a regular attendee… but yes I had some role too…"

JP: "And a Sporting member, right?"

VS: "I was."

JP: “Do you know the casuals?"

VS: "I had friends among the casuals…"

JP: "Were you part of them?"

VS: "No, just friends."

JP: "Here they always say they wear black and little else, it even gives me the impression that they must be goths…"

"What are the casuals?"

TS: "At Juve Leo, if someone enters the Casinha without anything Sporting or Juve Leo related, we immediately ask if they're casual… They're Sporting members who don't wear anything… But I don't know, I'm not one."

JP:" They wear black… Isn't that so they can get into trouble without being recognised?"

TS: "I don't see it that way, looking at the trouble… Occasionally there are also clashes with organised fan groups, but that's not why I say they go there…

JP: "Did you know Nuno Mendes?"

TS: "Yes."

JP: "Were you close to him?"

TS: "Yes."

“I was at the Madeira game. I came to Lisbon on Monday, I think in the afternoon. Following the result and all the confusion that ensued, the way the game ended, the protests and the response Acuña had, calling names… Speaking for myself, I started to feel the urge to go to the Academy, to demonstrate all my discontent, and we started to make plans.”

“I wanted to understand how we could organise that. I wanted to show my dissatisfaction with the result, firstly because we had made a good recovery but didn't achieve the second objective, which was to qualify for the Champions League, and secondly because of the player's attitude. There was this discontent in the groups and in private conversations.”

“I know how I talk to my friends, but in a group where people I don't know join, I just had to disconnect for a little while and I'd immediately have 500 messages, with everyone wanting to say things… I also wrote, but I didn't read much. I wanted to show my discontent."

JP: "But the players had already been assigned…"

VS: "But many of those messages were in a joking manner…"

JP: "It talks about flares, cannons, stones… ‘I have a tank, does anyone want to take it?’…”

VS: "Yes, it was that boastfulness, it was mockery…"

“I wanted to show my discontent in a more… less friendly way. To call them mercenaries, that they weren’t worthy of wearing the jersey, things like that… That was my objective. I stopped at the Lidl [in Montijo] but I didn’t have a clear idea of how many there were, how many cars. We covered our faces because of the journalists, I took off my t-shirt and covered my face. The hood was a sweatshirt I was also wearing. I remember covering my face, some people immediately started running and I ran too. I remember someone saying ‘The training will be over soon’ and I said back ‘Let’s go quickly or we won’t see anyone at training soon’. I didn’t ask anyone to let me in because I knew I wasn’t authorised, Sporting didn’t know. I went to the field, I saw that the players weren’t there, I saw coach Jesus on the field."

“I turned left and headed towards the locker room door. I knew it was there because I had been there before. I tried to open the door and saw players on the other side. The last time I had been there, the players had gone onto the field. I started hearing noise, shouts, and I couldn't understand how they had gotten in. I looked to my right and someone told me, ‘They went this way.’ I went through that glass door, headed towards the locker room, and saw the player Bas Dost with someone from Sporting, complaining about his head. He was standing, accompanied. I didn't understand what had happened. I continued and reached that area; there were more people connected to Sporting and others who were with me. I stopped there in the bathroom area; I didn't go into the locker room. I heard shouts, smoke, I heard ‘They don't play anything,’ ‘We are Sporting,’ ‘They are not worthy of wearing the shirt,’ ‘Sons of bitches.’”

“William came up to me and said, ‘Válter, Válter, what’s this?’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know, we came to talk to you, to show our discontent.’ I lowered my shirt when I entered and he told us to go to the side to talk. We stayed talking, him saying, ‘What’s this for?’ He said he had been assaulted, that we could talk normally but there was no need to be aggressive. I said that wasn’t the objective, that we wanted to talk and show our discontent, to talk about Acuña’s attitude. He said they knew it hadn’t been the best attitude but that things weren’t resolved with aggression. Meanwhile, there was a huge noise and I started to hear the alarm.”

Note - You know by now how we love contradictory statements. Williams testimony to the court: "Did I talk to Válter? No. But we have each other's telephone contact.” He did however acknowledge to trying to call Elton Camará twice on May the 15th but he didn't pick up and William could only surmise the reason for the calls were “Possibly to talk about what happened.”

Judge Pires: “How did you manage to recognise Válter Semedo in the midst of the confusion without talking to him?”

William: “When I left the dressing room I saw him and I could recognise him.”

JP: “Did you also call Nuno Mendes, or Musta?”

TS: "Yes, I asked, 'What's going on here?' And he said to me 'What's going on? What's going on?'.

Note - remember Mustafá testified to that his phone was switched off all day on the 15th? Just for reference as a nod to Bruno de Carvalho's claims of his midfielders relationship with the Claques he tells Nuno Mendes' lawyer Rocha Quintal: "We weren't friends but we had a good relationship, I've already had lunch with him. Once, in Aroeira, before the game against Atlético de Madrid. I gave him a sweater. From time to time I called to ask how I was, if everything was okay.”

And back with the testimony…

Judge Pires: “You weren't authorised. Who decided that, who was going?”

VS: "Honestly, in these football things, you only know who's going when you get there. If they say 100 are going the day before, 20 show up on the day.

JP: "It was written in the group 'This whole charade has to end', 'Why doesn't anyone do anything?', 'Us and the casuals'..."

VS: "Us, me and another person..."

JP: "And there's another part here where you say you gave authorisation to take the Juve Leo van?"

VS: "In a way, that van was normally kept in Alvalade, it only goes out for games or during the choreography. I even used the van without the fan group's leadership knowing, to go to the Algarve. In that case, since he [Quim] had the van because we had done the choreography with Benfica, he asked me because I'm close to Musta, possibly for that reason...

JP: "Are you close to Nuno Mendes?"

VS: "Yes, yes…"

JP: "Wouldn't it be normal, being close to him, to have said…"

VS: "When this trip starts being talked about with people who… I avoided talking to him [Musta] about certain things… I didn't tell him everything. Over the last few months I've done some silly things in the spirit of football and I knew he wouldn't be happy, so I didn't tell him everything I did…

JP: "And the trip to the Academy?"

VS: "I didn't talk about it. Especially because I knew that talking to him would most likely lead him to contact someone at Sporting to arrange the trip. In my head, with the Jamor final so close, I thought I would be rejected, and if I was rejected he would say I couldn't go…

JP: "And if you said you were going anyway?

VS: "He wouldn't accept it…

“There are people who only go to certain events if they know Mustafa is going, so it ends up being a kind of lure.” 

“Personally, I didn't deal with tickets through Tiago; it was easier with Mustafa. Since I had a close relationship with him, I would go through the hierarchy and talk to him. We are always receiving messages and calls from various people. It was tickets for other people; someone called me, and that's why. Someone called someone close to him, and they may have called me to talk to him and make a reservation, hence my attempt to call.”

This said in relation to the attempted phone calls that day to Nuno Mendes. 

VS: “After we left? I didn't call Cristina from my cell phone; it was Tiago. His battery was dead, we were detained. He had to pick up his daughter from school.”

Judge Fátima Almeida: “There's a first group that enters the Academy, where you are. Is there any employee trying to obstruct entry, between the Academy gate and the training field door? Specifically Ricardo Gonçalves?

VS: "To be honest, I don't remember."

JFA: "And when you were trying to open the door?"

VS: "I don't think so."

JFA: "And another person from Sporting, Paulo Cintrão?"

VS: "I didn't know who he was, the only person I remember and knew was Jorge Jesus."

JFA: "And no flares were set off there?"

VS: "No."

JFA: "When had you been to the Academy before?"

VS: The other time I went there…"

JFA: "How many times did you go?

VS: Twice."

JFA: "When?"

VS: "Once after the games against Desportivo Chaves, the players came out and passed through the middle of us and Nuno Mendes was there, we had been authorised…"

JFA: "You didn't really want authorisation here?"

VS: "No, because I would probably have been rejected."

“At the end of the game, we were protesting and he came close and called us ‘son of a bitch’. We were criticising, we felt they didn’t take action. In Madeira, I booked the flight with more people, but I was with a girl there. I didn’t see the first half, only the second. I went in at halftime, that’s all. One player, William, had asked for some tickets for Jamor and said he was going to hand them over at half time.”

So here Semedo is referencing the group he created as a trip. It's not a planned invasion or an attack at all. Yes there's clearly some bravado but when someone says they've got a tank they can bring then you wouldn't suggest that it's anything other than a bit of silliness. He alludes to the fact that when you try plan anything you'll get 100 people commit only to discover that only 1 in 5 people turn up. 

One of my pet hates is when people use obviously as if it's a comma or a full stop. As a child I was always told not to state the obvious. It's something I really try so very hard to adhere to, but I think it's obvious that actually, this wasn't a planned attack at all. Or at the very least we can discount everyone from a Juve Leo perspective. 

He answered an awful lot of the floating questions. Occam's razor time;

Why were they covering their faces? Because there were journalists outside with cameras. 

Why did they run in? Because they were afraid they'd miss the players. Oi! No sniggering at the back. 

What was the reason for going? To show their discontent at players performances. 

Why didn't they ask Nuno Mendes to arrange an official visit? 

Because he assumed Mendes would think it wasn't a good idea and that the club wouldn't have sanctioned it. Neither would Mendes have sanctioned one side of them going even without club authorisation. 

This is the man remember who creates the WhatsApp group Academy Tomorrow. Doesn't take a genius to work out what it was about and if you have a theory that it means anything other than going to the academy tomorrow I'd suggest that you keep it to yourself. You wonder how Nuno Mendes organised trips. Was it with practical group names like Vizela away. When you opened them was there an itenary? This is the meeting point. This is the purpose of the trip. You know just practical stuff you might need to know. If so did Válter Semedo draw inspiration from this? 

He confirms two things in his testimony, by the time he's jogged down there everything has pretty much already gone off and he admits to talking to William and telling his friend we didn't come to attack you. We just came to basically talk to you. 

He talks of the lure of Mustafá. Well we've heard from other defendants testimony that they thought he'd be there. So why was his name used? As a false flag. He's advertised as the headline act but was never booked. Because presumably had they not mentioned his name there might have only been ten of them turn up if that. 

Emanuel Calças in his testimony stated that it was only when Nuno Mendes did not show up that he realised that there was no connection with Juve Leo: "I only realised that Nuno Mendes (Mustafá) was not already at the Academy. I had been told that he was going. Did I talk to him? No, after the games that go wrong it's normal for him to turn off his cell phone. If he had gone, there would certainly not have been that lack of control.”

So at least we can forgive the GNR for something at least on the basis of above if someone had said in the group that he was going. But note that Calças confirms that it's normal for Mustafá to switch his phone off after games. 

Again in his testimony he confirmed the purpose of the visit to Alcochete was to "put pressure on the players" and that they organised themselves in a Whatsapp group, 'Academia Amanhã'. "Our intention was to arrive in the middle or at the end of training and ask the players for justifications.”

So no planned attacks. 

Interestingly Calças might also provide us with the answer to another question. He says that he learned about the time of training through a "Sporting employee" and that he confirmed this information through the media.

However with all that said we're left with two WhatsApp groups where we really don't know what was said in them. Presumably there was some genuine discourse in there. But if that's true then the GNR should have been easily enough to identify any markers of serious threats, cross reference it with the CCTV footage and players testimony and build a case from there. 

If this was a podcast I'd have had to have edited out the best part of fifteen minutes of silence as I try to get my head around everything. Every time I think I understand things a little bit better I end up questioning everything again. Which truthfully is what the GNR and the prosecution should have done more fully from the outset. Because you now have a distinct possibility that it was an unhappy coincidence. That it was never planned, or at least not it the way it turned out. No one authorised any attack because there wasn't supposed to be an attack. Unless…

*Does a Nuno Mendes in court and points to the casuals dressed in black. 

So we now know that Válter knows some of the casuals and admits he's done some silly things relating to football that Nuno Mendes isn't aware of. He's basically a gopher for the Juve Leo. You've plenty of films that glamorise football violence and the casuals scene; The Football Factory and Green Street, probably being the two most famous examples. So it's not hard to make a leap and suggest that actually whilst you might have access to an easy Matchday ticket, that come matchday he'd actually prefer to have a beer, no duties and be a hanger on with some of the casuals who probably make it all seem like one jolly big adventure. However as Mike Tyson famously once said, everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth. We also know by now that actually Nuno Mendes is a man that does things by the book. Not surprising really having learned he has a financial stake in the behaviour of fans. 

I frequently in my match reports end up with an improvised version of the board game Guess Who when no one really stands out as man of the match. I think we could all really do with a giant board full of photos who we could have flicked down out of sight by now. 

So is there any evidence anywhere or even hints or suggestions that might help us? Any stones that we've left unturned? Because we know one thing, we're getting closer to the truth and I think I've got my finger hovering over it like the National Lottery one going ‘It must be you!’ The problem as always though is every turn we've made in series two has always felt more plausible than how the Portuguese press covered the case in series one. But truthfully I've as much egg rolling down my face at points as both Cândida Vilar and the GNR. However I'm not costing the Portuguese taxpayer hundreds of thousands of euros. But we do now move ever closer to the truth. Join us again in our next post.