Sporting CP 3 Portimonense 0

Sporting CP v Portimonense
May 4th, 2024

Estádio José Alvalade

Matchday 32

The Warm Up

If you could plan your final three games of the league campaign would you deliberately choose to face two of the bottom three teams? This the exact situation Sporting find themselves in with the table standings before tonight’s fixture. On paper they seem easier fixtures especially when factoring that they’re both at home. I mean what could possibly go wrong against teams desperate for three points to keep themselves in the top flight? Well when you write it like that…

Well the good news at least is that by the time Sporting face Chaves on the last day of the season the title should be secured. Should be and will be however are two very different beasts. Some will claim this season coach Ruben Amorim has rarely got things wrong on or off the pitch. However we are all human and therefore capable of making mistakes. It’s how you own those mistakes that counts. I’ve parked the London debacle, what’s done is done and he’s owned it. I’ve made far worse mistakes in my life and it was simply for me the timing, not the fact he wants to progress his career’ The opening 45 minutes in the Clássico was borderline shambolic and Porto didn’t just make us look ordinary, they made us look well and truly piss poor. Amorim got the lineup and tactics wrong. The only other game I could compare it to this season would be in the first of the four fixtures against Atalanta. I’d have to watch both halves again to determine which was worse and frankly watching them both just the once was bad enough. The important fact was in the second half of both we saw a positive Sporting reaction and OK we didn’t get anything from the Atalanta game, but last week we came away with a point, a valuable learning experience and a reminder that you cannot take winning the title for granted. No one is going to hand it to you willingly. 

With the dust finally settled on the Clássico I find myself still annoyed on Marcus Edwards behalf after coming on to set up the equaliser and then find himself sent off three minutes later. Humour me if you will please; Galeno is holding his shirt and he pushes him away. Galeno then puts his head into Edwards’ for which his reaction is to flick out a hand and make the faintest of touches which sees Galeno go down like Rivaldo in the corner of the World Cup game against Turkey for Brazil, clutching his face like a prime Mike Tyson has hit him. To say it’s fucking embarrassing is an understatement. So you’d expect in the cold light of day that justice would be served and the card over turned. To be fair I’d have expected VAR to have cleared it up on the night. Clear and obvious is the yardstick for the incident to be looked at again is it not? Well it’s clear and obvious that either Galeno should have gone first for putting his head into Edwards’ or that common sense would prevail in that Galeno sold the referee a pup. Neither happened and the Englishman is then given a two game ban. I really feel for him. Two fucking games for that, I mean come on. Someone should have let him go so he could have actually punched him. I’m not saying Galeno should have gone for putting his head onto Edwards' either but if you send one off for the letter of the law then both have to go by the same token.

If you’re not familiar with the setup of the Portuguese league the fixtures are akin to playing a double round of 17 hole golf on the same course. Having played the opening 17 you then repeat them in the same order which would hold true for Sporting if not for the PSP going on strike forcing the postponement of the Famalicão game away. It provides a neat metric for comparison. In the opening half of the season players could potentially play 1,530 minutes of football. Additional time isn’t included for pedantic’s or should that be pedants? Don’t worry they’ll soon tell you. Staying with the topic of the Englishman, Edwards played a total of 1,059 minutes of those which is 69.22% and he featured in all bar the Famalicão and Chaves games where he was named amongst the substitutes. Granted we’ve only played 14 of the 17 remaining in the back 17 to use golfing parlance once more, so it’s not yet a complete like for like comparison but we’ve already ascertained he’s suspended for two of those games remaining so really we’re only 90 minutes off a full comparison. Including the three minute cameo appearance in the Clássico he’s totalled just 269 minutes. Even if he played another full 90 minutes before the end of the season at best he’d have featured in 23.46% of those total minutes. OK he crashed his Range Rover en route to the training complex and that kept him out of the following game as a precaution yet that was on November 29th. He picked up another injury from memory in the new year but it wasn’t a big one that kept him out for weeks. 790 minutes less involvement on the pitch in the second half of the league campaign is a spectacular drop off especially given last season’s game time totalled 2,264 minutes. It’s not like his statistics are bad for the season either. OK maybe you’d like a higher return than 4 goals and 4 assists but it’s hard when you’ve played the equivalent of a minute shy of 3 full games in the last 14. His shooting accuracy for the season as a whole remains high at 67%, passing at 80% and he’s created 48 chances. Geny who occupies the same sort of space on the field has a higher passing accuracy of 83% but shots on target are at 38% and he’s created 30 chances less with just 18 during an additional 324 minutes on the pitch. Trincão has been the trusted man in the back 17 in what has been a role reversal for the two forwards. Opening 17 the Portuguese player managed just 336 minutes to Edwards 1,059. These figures have reversed with 1,090 playing 269. Interestingly last season their figures in respects of total minutes played were virtually identical with Edwards narrowly ahead having played 2,264 minutes to 2,215 for Trincão. Then along came Viktor.

Edwards on his day is the Swiss Army knife of forwards with the tools to unlock any defence. He links up well with Gyökeres and when it comes off it looks like a beautiful marriage whereas the Swede and Paulinho look like an old married couple who should have divorced twenty years ago but have stayed together for reasons unknown to the rest of the world. Trincão on form is a joy to watch. He’s like a baby foal just galloping around looking so joyful and happy, all limbs just bending about willy nilly. By comparison Edwards is more like a Scalextric car; quick acceleration of pace, low centre of gravity, twisting and turning at a violent speed.

The reality is someone has to miss out somewhere. You can only have eleven men on the pitch at any one time and when you’re wedded to a 3-4-3 formation that limits the chances. Is it simply a case that Trincão is playing better than Edwards? Is it Geny occupying the same space preventing more game time for the Englishman? Has something happened behind the scenes between Edwards and Amorim that we’re not party to? Have I just waffled on for a couple hundred words to not be able to give a definite answer? Yes I have but ironically yes is a definitive answer so I’ll leave you to chew that one over. All told it wouldn’t surprise me to see Edwards move on during the summer if only for him to try to fulfil his potential though he has gone on record he’d like to play another 150 games for Sporting having reached that total earlier this season. Would I keep him over Trincão? I don't know. I'd move Trincão int’ a traditional number 10 role coming on from a central midfield position but that being said I’d also do the same with Edwards. Shut up man and move on.

Back to the game at hand and the visitors Portimonense in this fixture have yet to come away from Sporting with a single point. Played 20, lost 20, goals for 9, goals against 43. They go into the game 3rd bottom, one point behind Estrela and face a Sporting team who’ve won all 15 games at home in the league. You’d be a brave man or woman to bet against Sporting not collecting another 3 points come full time. I opened with the question of whether you’d choose to play two out of the bottom three in the last three games. Well given the Portimonense record away to us the answer here at least is a definitive yes.

Off the field Amorim thinks that Coates has signed a new contract. Surely you’d know if your captain had renewed? Adán won’t have his contract automatically renewed currently falling two games short of the requisite total and his future remains in doubt. Given the choice of him and Israel for next season I’m renewing the Spaniard, selling the Uruguayan and I’ll then see whether Adán is number one choice or fills the role of backup to whoever we sign in the summer. It’s usually hard to ascertain the quality of a backup keeper when they play so infrequently and irregularly. Israel cannot complain that he’s not been given a chance to prove his worth and I’ve not changed my opinion of him at any point since he took over the number one position. He’s not good enough. His decision making hasn’t improved, his positional play is frankly woeful at times and his reaction time is akin to mine at 46 years of age and OK Adán isn’t the same keeper he was during the title winning season but he’s hands down better than Israel. It seems almost unfair to compare the two and if they weren’t teammates I’d not have them in the same conversation. It’s day and night for me.

The money markets

Sporting 1/12 = 92.31% probability chance of winning
Portimonense 18/1 = 5.26% probability chance of winning 

Team News

Matheus Reis is available for selection once more after a long lay off. As expected considerable changes to the side that started last time out against Porto. At the back Inácio drops back into his usual position left of the three. Diomande comes over and St Juste makes way. In midfield with Inácio dropping back, Nuno Santos comes into his normal starting position. Esgaio is preferred wide right to Geny and will provide the defensive cover. Gonçalves drops back alongside Hjulmand in midfield with the fit again Gyökeres taking his place in the front three. Reis is named amongst the substitutes which is light on attacking options with Edwards suspended. Amorim names two goalkeepers as an indication of how threadbare the cupboards are.

First Half

3 Gyökeres shot stopped at point blank range from Nakamura. Offside flag goes up. Wouldn’t have counted

5 Mistake from Nakamura puts his defence under pressure however Sporting fail to take advantage. They look nervous as well they might with the job in hand against a Sporting side who’ve won every league game at home up until this point

8 Gonçalves plays a clever ball to set Paulinho away inside the area but he scuffs his shot wide left straight out of play. We’ll be kind and call that a sighter

10 Inácio header flashes across the box and out to safety the other side from a Trincão corner on the right

12 GOAL Sporting CP 1 Portimonense 0. Cross from the left from Santos finds Paulinho free ten yards out who sweeps the ball through a defender’s legs and into the net. Suspicion of Santos being offside in the buildup? No – goal is given. Portimonense played too high a line there

15 Trincão looks towards the referee for a penalty. Contact looked like it came a yard outside of the box. Free kick awarded. Good spot by the referee as the motion carried him into box

16 Gonçalves finds Coates who powers a header over the bar

17 Shove by Diomande close to the Sporting box goes unpunished. Not sure how he got away with that one. You have to think fans of smaller teams have a point when they say officiating favours the bigger teams

20 What a save. Gonçalves beats the offside trap and volleys from ten yards out and somehow Nakamura keeps it out diving to his left. Incredible reflexes and timing from the Japanese international

23 Portimonense attack cut out on the edge of the Sporting area and within seconds the ball is in the same position in the Portimonense box. This team is rapid in transition. The visitors are going to clock up the kilometres tonight chasing the ball

24 Gyökeres with a clever touch loses his marker inside the box and makes the space for a shot from ten yards but it takes a deflection to go over the bar otherwise that was 2-0

29 Corner to the visitors. Their coach looks like a darts player with his pot belly shouting instructions at his players from the sidelines. All he’s missing is the Hawaiian shirt and a set of arrows

30 Close up of what one assumes is Mrs Paulinho and their child as she blows a kiss to her husband from the box. I was thinking the other day we don’t seem to ever see shots of Dolores or Gonçalves mum any more. Clearly there’s a new lady in town. Oh and that was post goal scored they’re not just randomly blowing kisses at each other from the pitch and the box

35 Paulinho beats his marker eight yards out and the ball crashes against the left post

36 Portimonense having to defend for their lives. Alemao just gets an outstretched leg to take it off the toes of Gyökeres and out for a corner. Do you think his teammates call him Oh Sol. If you didn’t grow up with dodgy Cornetto adverts in England as a kid I can only apologise for the confusion that may have caused

37 Diomande completes the set of defenders to miss from headers as his effort centrally from six yards goes past Nakamura’s left post

38 Close up this time of Geny and Morita on the bench who both have utterly blank expressions on their faces. Perhaps they need to go wave at Mrs Paulinho she might cheer them up

40 Sporting fans are having to make their own entertainment as they bounce up and down to the tune of Hitlers only got one ball. I don’t think they’re singing that in Portuguese mind you

44 Wow Nakamura again with an incredible save as he gets down low to his right to keep a Paulinho shot out. How has he saved that?

45 Wow again as Nakamura saves low to his left this time from an Inácio header. How did he get his fingers to that? If he was auditioning for a summer transfer to Lisboa he’s doing a bloody good job so far

Plus one shown

Half time

Sporting CP 1 Portimonense 0

Despite the early excitement and pressure the half petered off and the atmosphere in the stadium was somewhat flat despite the best efforts from certain quarters. Maybe too many day trippers along to be able to say I was there. Nakamura has been outstanding in goal for the visitors and has made three saves of genuine outstanding quality in the opening 45 to keep his side in the game.

Second half

Sporting get the second half underway and will attack left to right. No changes at half time as they chase a 16^th straight home victory that will leave them one win away from a second title in four years

46 Portimonense defending with a bank of six centrally allows Esgaio enough time and space to stop and light up a smoke. His cross eventually deflects for a corner. Perhaps he had too much time and space or simply we could just go with the fact that it is Esgaio after all

50 I don’t know why they persist with trying to fit Gyökeres and Paulinho into the same starting XI. It doesn’t work. Regular readers shouting at me now – yeah we know you’ve said that 1,000 times. It’s cause I’m right!

53 Turn and shot from 20 yards straight into the arms of Nakamura from Gonçalves

56 Happy Star Wars day to readers by the way and May the 4^th be with you. Regular readers will know the quality of the games when my minute by minute breakdown goes off on rambling tangents. This game needs another goal

60 Paulinho fires in a shot from the left low and hard at Nakamura who manages to block it out for a corner with his leg

60 Esgaio shown the yellow which is ironic because it’s probably the best challenge I’ve ever seen him make. He took out Costa in the follow through sure but that was never a fucking yellow card

63 Free kick comes to nothing thankfully. That Esgaio was shown a yellow was a joke enough in itself

65 Paulinho heads unmarked from six yards straight at Nakamura. If he finishes with just the one tonight he’s only himself to blame

66 I’m just starting to get nervous now. Not because Portimonense seem a threat but it would be so Sporting to get hit on the counter and it suddenly be 1-1

67 Gonçalves and Esgaio replaced with Geny and Bragança

69 GOAL Sporting CP 2 Portimonense 0. Trincão makes it two and I breathe a huge sigh of relief. Paulinho was clearly impressed by his assist because he continued his run from the left across the box in celebration and nowhere near Trincão. He collected the ball in Nuno Santos territory, beat his defender and cut the ball back from the byline to Trincão who swept the ball into the bottom right hand corner from 8 yards out. You’ve got to feel sorry for Nakamura who has been the best player on the pitch tonight by a country mile

73 Deflected shot by Midana stopped by Israel

74 Mexican wave is back. As I always say it’s a great indication of how dull things are on the pitch when they start

75 What the fucking hell was that? Paulinho shrugged off his marker to leave him 1 on 1 with Nakamura and he tried a dink and put it wide. Gyökeres would have just smashed it into the bottom right hand corner. He’ll get my man of the match but can we take him off now so Gyökeres can get a chance at adding to his season’s tally

77 Morita being readied on the sidelines presumably for Hjulmand

78 Inácio shown the yellow for a foul on Cassamá

79 Shot from 20 yards by Cassamá watched over the bar by Israel

79 Morita on for Hjulmand and Quaresma for Diomande

80 Nakamura continues his Gandalf impression of ‘you shall not pass’ as he saves one handed from Gyökeres 8 yards out. That’s Nakamura’s eighth stop of the game. I’m not his agent by the way but I am very impressed by him. If he was a Panini sticker I’d be trying to swap my Israel sticker for his

80 Midana shown yellow for a foul on Nuno Santos

87 Warm round of applause for Nuno Santos as he’s replaced by the returning Reis. This has probably been his best game of the season to date in what has been overall a disappointing one for the left winger

Four minutes additional time

+1 Glum looking faces from two of the Portimonense players on the bench who’ve been substituted. Sporting away clearly wasn’t the game you wanted when fighting to avoid relegation

+1 GOAL Sporting CP 3 Portimonense 0. Bragança manages to just toe poke the ball past Nakamura to Gyökeres who quite literally bundles it over the line from a yard out. He won’t care as he scores number 27 for the season. Varandas looks stone faced in the directors box as more firecrackers go off. Probably totalling how many euros in fines the fans will cost the club this game

Full time

Sporting CP 3 Portimonense 0

The Final Word

I rather stupidly moaned about the quality of the second half post match after we beat Gil Vicente 4-0 and then spent the following 90 away to Famalicão having kittens so I’ll try to learn my lesson this time around. Most importantly – it’s three points and leaves us one win away from the title. I’m not stupid enough to pin my hopes on the neighbours slipping up tomorrow. Nakamura was outstanding in the Portimonense goal. Another keeper in between the sticks and that’s 5 or 6-0 minimum. Our defence simply wasn’t troubled. Israel by comparison to Nakamura was on the beach sat in a deckchair with his feet up doing some colouring in. What more do you want? Well not a lot, just maybe not Paulinho and Gyökeres starting in the same team. I don’t mind which you start. Paulinho will get my man of the match but if he’s substitute then Gyökeres has more space to run into and he gets a minimum of a brace, possibly even a hat-trick. I lost count of how many good chances Paulinho had, which is what you want, don’t get me wrong, but you also want more clinical finishing and some assemblance of link up play between the two. Paulinho is too selfish and even when he did pass for Trincão to score his reaction was one of how great am I for that assist? Ironic that this kind of match was tailor made for Marcus Edwards to run in from the right. They didn't even bother to close Esgaio down.

Look I’ll shut up. Eight points clear. 16 wins from 16 home games. Fuck Leverkusen and them labouring to late draws to stay unbeaten. Get the green and white ribbons brought to tie on the trophy. Hire the engraver. The Championship is coming.