Obrigado Seba

Eleven days to go until the opening pre-season friendly against the Belgian side Union St.Gilloise and we’d already seen a host of players depart the club over the summer; Fatawu’s permanent transfer to Leicester City was confirmed whilst Adán and Neto had left as free agents. Paulinho the biggest name to date to depart having joined Mexican club Toluca. Flavio Nazinho has gone to Cercle Brugge, Chico Lamba to Arouca, and Ruben Vinagre has joined Legia Warszawa on loan. Koindredi is set to do a full 180° and return to Estoril on loan. Pontelo another of the January window signings was stated as having been on his way to Paços de Ferreira on the 2nd of this month only for it to then be reported the next day that he’s off to Pafos FC in Cyprus. Maybe it was a change of plans but could easily just have been a misunderstanding on the part of A Bola. What’s a ç and an f between friends? An easy mistake to make if true.

We’ve some new faces in the building in the form of Goalkeeper Vladan Kovačević who joins from last season’s Europa League opponents Raków Czestochowa. For those with a good memory, yes he's the Trincão lookalike. Zeno Debast fresh from appearing for Belgium in the Euros joins from Anderlecht.

The big news, the news which totally blindsided every fan I’m sure was the announced departure this morning of El Patrón - club captain Sebastián Coates who returns to Nacional on a free transfer. Regular readers will know I am a huge fan of the Uruguayan man mountain and spent a large part of the back end of last season questioning what we would do at the point that he leaves the club. I was under the impression that he had signed his one-year contract extension to continue his journey with Sporting so I can’t be the only one that didn’t see this coming. I said to a friend of mine this morning if you’d told me in the first four years at Sporting that I’d be messaging you to say I’m genuinely gutted at the news he’s leaving, I’d have laughed at you. I might have a joke at his expense about how he looks like he’s carting an invisible caravan around, but I’m entirely convinced at what a key part he was in both Championship wins over the past four seasons. He has been a bedrock of that side, the calm head when all others around him were losing theirs. The leader that drove the entire squad on and installed that level of belief on the pitch that they could go onto become Champions and overcome any hurdles in their way. He has grown in stature to a level I never expected he could ever get to, and I am so thrilled to have been proven wrong and been able to watch his rise into a player that will rightly be part of Sporting’s history for all time now. He is the one for me that makes Inácio look better than he really is when the two have started together because when Seba is missing he never looks the same level of player. The youngster, as do we all, owe him huge gratitude. He leaves behind an incredible legacy, and my heartfelt thanks goes out to the man and his family and I wish them all the very best not only at Nacional but whatever journey follows after. It’s been emotional. 

Obrigado Seba.