Sporting CP 2 Royale Union Saint-Gilloise 2

Sporting CP v Royale Union Saint-Gilloise
Wednesday July 17th, 2024
Estádio Algarve
Pre-season friendly

The Warm Up

As a kid summer holidays felt like they went on forever. Even in my late teens and early 20s the summer break between football seasons seemed to go on forever even if they were punctuated by a tournament. Now I'm fast approaching 50 there seems to be no gap at all. Maybe it's down to my age or it could simply be that there's far too much football played nowadays and I actually enjoy the break from it all. I've not seen a single second of the Euros and don't feel like I've missed out on anything. Any connection to football has been through betting on the J League, listening to the Guardian Weekly football podcast and reading A Bola and marvelling how Google translate manages to make every Portuguese journalist appear like they never check what they've written for errors before posting. Of all the usual speculation surrounding the potential exit of some of Sporting’s current crop of title winners, we were all of course blindsided by the loss of El Patrón - Sebastián Coates back to his native Uruguay. Luís Neto summed up what I think we all felt perfectly with his words on his social media post and subtly dropped in what us fans living in England had known all along that people in Portugal had been saying his surname wrong. To be fair to everyone in Portugal we do as a general rule butcher every Portuguese surname and it's not like we're claiming Seba as one of our own. I only knew because he gave an interview on Football Focus when playing in England confirming how his surname should be said. Then again he's hardly Messi and most of the world can't say his first name right despite being named after Lionel Richie. If his departure to Nacional came as a surprise it was only matched for me by Chelsea’s signing of Renato Veiga. OK I say matched, that might be stretching a bit far. I read the headline and was thinking to myself ‘didn’t we used to have a Renato Veiga in our ranks or am I imagining it?’ Sure enough not only did we have a player by the same name, he is one and the same. I'd never have seen that one coming either. 

For new readers as a demonstration of how my mind works and what you can expect from these blog posts the one point I keep returning to every month when it comes to Sporting is that Ricardo Esgaio has more winners medals than Harry Kane is his career totalling at the time of writing six to none; 1 League title, 2 Taça de Portugal’s, 2 Taça da Liga’s and 1 Supertaça. Football as they say is a funny old game. 

It seems pointless to speculate on which players will remain come the end of the transfer window, what it is worth saying however is Sporting seem to be holding onto their position that if you want to take Inacío or Gyökeres you're going to have to pay their termination clause and to the best of my knowledge that doesn't come with a payment plan. That's a case of hoping your club credit card has a big limit on it and you can remain within FFP or whatever they call it now, profit and sustainability rules? I guess a lot will depend on how much capital the club need to raise to balance the books but in losing Adán, Coates, Neto and Paulinho they've saved €6m in wages annually. Who knew the Spaniard was top wage earner on €1.6m per annum? It's no wonder Premier League clubs think they can entice players from other leagues given the average salary is reportedly £60,000 a week. Diomande for example is on a reported €300,000 per annum. The one thing the large majority of English clubs won't have to offer this season is Champions League Football and the possibility of winning back to back league titles, that is unless your name happens to be Manchester City. I've seen reports of Sporting potentially accepting a lower offer for Gyökeres from Arsenal or Chelsea and my first thought was ‘how do you eek a living out writing this shit?’ The original plan was to sell Diomande but it appears with no firm offers for the youngster they're preparing themselves for a club paying Inácio's termination clause though it has also been suggested he could reject a deal to play for Sporting in the Champions League next season. Interestingly he also cut short his holiday to return to pre-season training which some might claim to be a sign of intent to stay and try to bring about more success this season. I'm not saying that's correct by the way but you could easily attach such a theory to it. Personally I'd sell him and keep Diomande but that's just me.

The club have already generated funds through the sale of Paulinho and Fatawu and I believe were entitled to 10% of the Veiga deal to Chelsea and the Palhinha transfer from Fulham to Bayern München. Flavio Nazinho has gone to Cercle Brugge, Chico Lamba to Arouca, and Ruben Vinagre has joined Legia Warszawa on loan. Pontelo has gone out on loan, Koindredi is due to do the same, but whether those come with a fee we shall see. I imagine the latter is more likely. Regular readers will know I'd been predicting both would be summer exits in one form or another. Marcus Edwards is set to leave either for the Premier League or Saudi Arabia and there's talk of a swift return for Fresneda to Spain. We do of course have the income from the new Swiss style model Champions League with more games which will help in addition. 

Tonight's game isn't about the result. Pre-season should only ever be used as an indicator of how much work needs to be done for each player to get closer to being match fit. Gyökeres hasn't even stepped foot on the pitch and he'll face a race to appear in the opening game of the season which makes buying a replacement for Paulinho all the more pressing at this stage of the summer to allow time for them to integrate into the group. 

Tonight's visitors Union St.Gilloise will be no pushovers having finished runners up in Belgium last time out. The club is probably best known not for its exploits on the field but for its ownership off the field. Alex Muzio, business partner of Brighton owner Tony Bloom is now the majority shareholder in the club after the Brighton owner was forced to reduce his investment when both clubs qualified for the same European competition last summer. They probably rival Sporting in a lot of ways in that they're not a team of big name players but a collective who've managed to start to bring back the glory days to what was once the biggest club in Belgium. They've come close to winning the Belgium title for two straight seasons now so this game should be a good test for Amorim’s men.

The two sides have never met in competitive competition but played out a 1-1 draw on July 13th, 2022 when Pedro Porto opened the scoring in the 20th minute.

In the markets 

Sporting 1.61 

Draw 3.75

Union 4.33

Starting XI

Kovačević, Quaresma, Diomande, Reis, Catamo, Santos, Fernandes', Morita, Gonçalves Trincão and Nel

Substitutes

Calais, Alves, Couto, Justo, Travassos, Silva

First Half

It's worth remembering that Sporting play two games today which accounts for the reduced squad. Goals from Bragança and Ribeiro in a 2-0 win against Portimonense.

Sporting attacking right to left in their new home kit debuted on the last game of the title winning season. RUSG in all white.

7 #24 just leaves his foot in on Catamo. That won't be the last time the youngster is on the end of a late challenge this season.

9 Chants of campeāos spring up just in case the players need reminding. Those in attendance have clearly decided they need to make their own entertainment. That or the hardcore of fans have just walked in from one of the local bars

12 Clever play from Diomande who steps up a yard for their #9 to be flagged offside. I certainly feel way more comfortable with him at the centre of the 3 than I ever do with Inacío.

14 Sporting with everyone bar the keeper in the opposition half. Space is at a premium.

17 Fernandes cleaned out by a late challenge just moments after Nel was wrestled to the floor. RUSG aren't going easy on the youngsters.

23 Santos and Reis combine well on the left on the overlap. Ball eventually finds its way to Trincão whose shot from 20 yards was blocked

29 Shot or Gyökeres in the stand who's not watching the game

30 Shot of Varandas also looking on presumably next to Mrs Varandas who looks properly pissed at having to sit through this shit.

30 Drinks break.

32 Game gets back underway. Hopefully they don't bother adding the time onto the end of the half. I've just noticed all the RUSG players have hey! in the space where their names would appear. Sure it probably means something to someone in Belgium

34 There's a guy in a bucket hat with a huge white beard. Could be Santa on his summer holidays?

35 Chance of a break and Reis with the first touch like a trampoline. Throws his hand up to apologise.

36 Morita seems to have attached Reis’ foot to his head as he sends the ball over the bar from 4 yards out

37 Morita plays Gonçalves through 1 on 1 with the keeper. Sends his shot low at the keeper. Offside given but replays suggest he was actually well on when the ball was played. Morally that's the first shot on target in this game. You're not taking that one away from me.

38 Geny brought down on the right wing. Santos has come across to take it and doesn't even clear the first man.

42 Nuno Santos pull back across the area from the left evades everyone out to Trincão whose shot was blocked and out for a corner

43 Geny with the curling effort pushed around the post for another corner. Finally a proper shot on target.

+1 indicated

If you decided to get up for a wee and beat the crowds you'd be mighty pissed off right now. Nuno Santos' cross found Morita unmarked at the far post. His effort was saved and came straight back to the Japanese midfielder who squared it to Nel to tap in to make it Sporting CP 1 Union St.Gilloise 0

Half time

Dull game. Dull, dull game. Not even lifted by the brief excitement of an additional time goal from the youngster Nel. It's pre season, it is what it is. Diomande has looked the most comfortable player in a Sporting shirt. I'd not be rushing back for the second half if I was in attendance it's fair to say. The look on Mrs Varandas’ face said how we all felt watching on.

Second Half

Sporting get the second half underway. Nice touch in the stands as Gyökeres stands signing autographs for the fans in attendance.

47 Sporting have started with a lot more vim and vigour. Nice run in from the right by Catamo but took on one defender too many in the end

48 Free kick from deep on the left finds a Union head but his flick goes wide of the right hand post to safety. He smacks himself on the head either in annoyance or to remind him which part of his head he should be using.

53 Sporting CP 2 Union 0. Fernandes spots Gonçalves wide open on the left hand side who smashes it home from 16 yards into the bottom left hand corner. Beautifully taken goal.

56 Kovacevic with the smart save low to his right from #23 20 yards out after Morita was dispossessed on the edge of the box. Think the Japanese international owes his new teammate an ice cold drink after saving his blushes there.

59 We're just getting a close up of the second goal. Nice driving run full of purpose from Fernandes who beats one man, looked wonderfully poised in full flow and demonstrated good vision to spot Gonçalves open on the left and played an inch perfect pass through. The youngster started 25 times for Estoril making 29 appearances in total, scoring once with two assists last season. The plan seems to be to keep him with the club rather than loan him out whereas Essugo is likely to go back out on loan or possibly be sold.

65 Great save again from close range by Kovacevic. #7 had been flagged offside but he was lightning quick to react all the same and starfished it to save with his right knee.

66 Bloodied nose for one of the Union players. He bumped into Geny who held his ground well and just caught the defender with his hand as the defender was falling over. Good to see Geny not being pushed off the ball for once.

72 Sporting CP 2 Union St.Gilloise 1. Beautiful half turn left Morita on his way to the Spanish border and Sadiki pings it past Kovacevic from 22 yards centrally. Very well taken goal

74 Trincão strikes low from 14 yards to bring a save from the keeper. You'd expect him to have made the game 3-1 there. His first touch took him past two defenders and into the box but the substitute keeper was equal to it.

76 Drinks break and a chance to see that goal again. He fires it in between Diomande and Quaresma inch perfectly. It gets better with every watch.

79 Union not done yet as a shot from 25 yards goes wide of the left post

82 Gonçalves tries to break into the box from a clever through ball by Nel but the defender times his tackle perfectly to dispossess him on the edge of the 18 yard box.

84 Geny just took a knee into the face as he was falling down in a tussle out on the right.

85 Nel replaced. Not entirely sure who by. Announcer didn't help my cause by trying to ham up the players name when he called it out. Whoever the youngster is, he's five minutes to impress.

87 Sporting CP 2 Union St.Gilloise 2. Ball played five yards into the Sporting half and split the defence. Akinpelu rounds Kovacevic and slots the ball home like he's putting at the Masters in Augusta.

+4 indicated

+1 Geny with the familiar jinking run in from the right blasts his shot wide from 18 yards and gets cleaned out in the follow through to compound his misery.

+4 Oh well the bookmakers clearly had enough of that game as they swap to coverage of an ESports football game. I'm presuming the final whistle would have blown in the next 20 seconds.

Full time in the Algarve

Sporting CP 2 Union St.Gilloise 2

The final word

Well apologies to whoever the youngster was that came on for Sporting. Things aren't easy with no commentary or captions on screen. My customary man of the match I'm sure won't match anyone else's who was watching but it goes to Diomande. I'd pretty much decided whatever happens in the second half he was so far ahead after the opening 45 it would take something really special to surpass him in the second half.

Morita for the second pre-season looks miles off his game. He'd be better off being given an extra fortnight off to recharge his batteries physically and mentally. He got caught in possession and had Kovacevic to thank for not conceding a goal and then was left like a leaping salmon going upstream whilst the ball was being carried downstream for the opener.

Gonçalves took his goal really well. Reminded me of the player who finished top scorer in the league a couple of seasons back and if we don't see Gyökeres return for the opening game (assuming he's staying) then we'll certainly need that level of finishing. The caveat to this game as I mentioned in the opener was Sporting played two games today, the other being behind closed doors so I'm not able to offer up an opinion on that one. Not sure I could have taken two pre season games though given the quality in the opening 45 of this. At least it brightened up in the second half. I'm not worried about results but I don't really want to sit bored out of my mind. Fernandes did well in flashes. Nuno still looks like a ghost of the player from two seasons ago. I thought Kovacevic did well until the point that he didn't. To be fair that first Union goal was a peach but he should have done better with the second. Better to get it out the way in pre season and that understanding with his defence will only come through game time played together. Trincão looked like he was blowing out of his arse at times and not quite at the races but like every season with him you know there's a player in there, it's just whether you'll see it during the 90 minutes. Geny still has work to do on his finishing. If he cracks that cutting in from the right and final shot then my god the world is that kid's oyster. We've seen what happens when he gets it right but when he doesn't you'd be telling those up with him to try to look for that space so he can just lay off a simple pass and not have to take the shot. I had 1-1 in my head before kick off. 0-0 in my head after 44 minutes so I'll park the first half and say the second half was open and entertaining.

Footnote - Justo was the youngster who came on in the 85th minute. Probably also worth pointing out Nuno Santos was chosen as Captain of the starting XI