1.7 The fall and rise of Bruno de Carvalho - The battle of Alcochete

In our last part we left you after the full time whistle had blown on the last game of the 2017/18 Liga season, a 2-1 defeat away to Marítimo which ensured that Sporting missed out on automatic qualification for the Champions League, but in truth failure to beat Benfica in the penultimate game had already sealed that fate. Because even if they'd won here Benfica had the better goal difference noting their head to head record read exactly the same after two draws. Jesus' record ended: Played 34, won 24, drawn 6, GF 63, GA 24. Benfica's read: won 25, drawn 6, lost 3, GF 80, GA 22. So if and when you hear or read others saying the Marítimo loss cost them qualification to the Champions League it clearly didn't because even if they'd have won in Madeira they'd still have finished second. But there we go…

Anyways, they finished 3 points off Benfica who finishes in second. It was scant consolation that at least their biggest rivals hadn't won a fifth straight league title, with FC Porto instead being crowned Champions of Portugal. Tensions at the club were rising high fuelled by Bruno de Carvalho threatening to suspend 19 first team players following a 2-0 loss to Atlético Madrid in the first leg of their Europa League quarter finals. They'd eventually lose 2-1 on aggregate. The Marítimo loss proved the straw that broke the camel's back.

The season had started with a war of words between de Carvalho and Premier League club West Ham's owners after their deadline day bid to sign William Carvalho, swiftly followed by the Adrien Silva transfer debacle which saw him unable to play for four months. Despite briefly topping the league in one of the early rounds, Sporting spent the remainder of their league campaign chasing the tails of Porto and Benfica and Jorge Jesus failed to win a single match against either side or against Braga for that matter. They did however win the Taça da Liga on penalties 5-4 but added to the Supertaça won in Jesus' first season it was a poor return on an investment of his €17m salary paid out over his three seasons in charge. Yet Sporting still had one more game to play. If they beat Desportivo des Aves on May 20th, 2018 in Jamor they would at least complete the domestic double. Sporting unsurprisingly would be firm favourites to win the Taça de Portugal in just seven days time.

Before we get to the lead up of that game I want to look at football fans in greater detail, especially certain sections of Sporting’s claques because they'll play a key role in Sporting's darkest ever day in their club history. Remember we introduced them way back in part 2. 

First off, I think it's really important to draw a distinction between football hooligans and football ultras because traditionally the boundaries between the two are not acknowledged and they're simply lumped into same category. In England we've traditionally had the problem of football hooligans famously referred to as the English disease and every club has at least one firm if not more. Whilst violence isn't as common place as it once was, it has always been the modus operandi of the hooligan firms on matchdays. In ultra groups found across Europe and in South America you do find numerous examples where there are some serious hooligan elements attached to ultra groups. Holland has witnessed some of the very worst violence at football matches between rival fans which make the problems suffered in England seem quite tame in comparison although I'd argue they should simply be classified along with English clubs as simply having hooligan firms rather than ultras. In Argentina the ultras of clubs like Boca Juniors and River Plate have quite literally been killing each other for decades but are still considered ultras. In Italy you will find a balance between clubs with hardcore hooligan elements within their ultras and also ultra groups who do a huge deal for their local communities. You can sit Lazio in one corner with their fascist sympathies and reputation for violence whilst in another Atalanta's ultras who are renowned for their work with the community. Here one size definitely does not fit all. In Germany their ultras are also generally renowned for their community work and their steps towards inclusion and ensuring their national game isn't ruined by investment vehicles as is now happening in England. That's not to say certain clubs there don't have hooligans and certain clubs in the 70s and 80s had some serious connections to right wing politics.

In Germany clubs have to adhere to the 50 plus one rule which should ensure that the fans retain their stake in the ownership of their club though RB Leipzig did find a way to sidestep that but that's not for us to get into now. Fans of St Pauli set a shining example for others and rightly should be held up as a beacon to follow.

Whilst nowhere else around the globe follows the 50 plus 1 rule found in Germany you could argue there are similarities in the framework of a SAD in Portugal which we touched on in part one but again it doesn't hurt to go over again here because ultimately it's this structure that Sporting CP operate under and why you have it's members elect a club president such as Bruno de Carvalho whereas in English football, the most powerful person at the club was the owner who brought their way in and the fans had zero say in the matter.

Sidebar - The 50+1 rule is a German football regulation requiring club members (fans) to hold a majority of voting rights (50% plus one vote) in their club.

SAD short for Sociedade Anónima Desportiva is a legal structure in Portugal introduced in the 1990s designed to professionalise and manage sports clubs. Note the use of the word sport and not football in this context. It works as follows, the SAD issues shares which can be owned by the club, private investors or publicly traded on stock markets which is why when Sporting sacked Marco Silva they had to make the announcement to the market. Typically the parent club will maintain a controlling stake to give them the power over the decision making process. Sporting, Benfica and Porto maintain exactly that through their SAD. They are maintained by a board of directors. They enable clubs to attract investment. Think Braga with QSI who also own PSG. We'll wait and see if their structure allows for Braga to compete in next season's Champions League if they win this seasons Europa League. Not sure any of the Portuguese media are au fait with that particular tripping stone and maybe it won't be an issue. Maybe their investment is held in a blind trust? I'm digressing again apologies. (Note they lost to Freiburg in the semi finals).

The SAD is supposed to ensure financial stability by imposing stricter budgeting and spending controls. I'd suggest that actually this is not the case at all. They cannot guarantee against poor management or over reliance on debt which leads to club instability. What they are doing all the more is allowing clubs to become part of multi-club ownership models, although in fairness you don't need a SAD to do that specifically thinking about Rio Ave. But we do find that Portugal is all the more the choice for parking South American players to help them gain the requisite status’ for more lucrative moves abroad at a later stage. (None of which has anything to do with ultras I hasten to add just in case you're thinking how are these connected). In short Sporting is a SAD and a SAD is basically a glorified corporate version of a fan owned club which still enables larger investment to be found if needed, they have a club president who is voted for by members at an election who should represent the interest of the fans alongside the club itself as part of their remit. Now in the case it Bruno de Carvalho we've already previously established that he was a member of Sporting's two largest ultra groups. We've noted what ultra groups mean contextually around different parts of the globe, alluding to the fact that eome groups also have hooligan elements to them. What does it mean in a Portuguese context though?

In December 2018 Portuguese journalist Valentina Marcelino published a damning article on Portugal's ultras based on a report by the PSP (Portuguese Public Security Police).

Side note - That would be the same PSP who went on strike before the Famalicão v Sporting game last season and caused it to be cancelled despite both teams and the fans of both clubs having been in attendance for the proposed match by the way, and one which saw violent clashes after it failed to be played.

That report claimed that there were one thousand six hundred members of ultra groups identified as having committed crimes of which 975 had convictions for… wait for it… robbery, drug trafficking and serious assaults. That's quite the charge sheet there don't you think? Only 21 of those 1,600 were serving bans from attending games. 672 members were identified for crimes of violence in sport.

She begins her article with the following line -

There is no other way for a police officer from the Intervention Corps to prepare for hooliganism at a high-risk football match – usually involving one of the big clubs – or any other operation to confront urban violence or criminal gangs. They go out into the streets with their helmets, shields, batons, shotguns and bulletproof vests, prepared for the worst.

Quite chilling really when you read it. But ultras will tell a different story. Ever seen the numbers 1312 printed near stadiums but with no idea of what they mean? Well the numbers correspond to the letters of the alphabet, in this property instance ACAB, which is an abbreviation for: all cops are bastards. Before I had children I'd visited over half the 92 league grounds in England and the treatment by local police forces was mixed and sometimes ranked as frankly fucking ridiculous. All to often it's the behaviour of the local police force that's the catalyst for some fans bad behaviour and not the other way around. We went to Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium and got a police escort in which is always a bonus and a good way of beating the traffic but also serves as a marker that you are the travelling fans which makes you prime pickings for home hooligan elements. It's not uncommon for coaches to get pelted with stones and I've seen the windows of a coach put through whilst we were in transit going through Birmingham but thankfully for us at least it was done to the coach in front which didn't stop. This particular night in Stoke though no such incidents on the outskirts and we pull up some 150 metres from the stadium. There's a splattering of home fans about but no more than a couple of dozen. Everyone gets set to get off the coach but we're told to wait for another escort which was funny at first because everyone thought he was joking, but he wasn't. Then ten minutes later when it really wasn't and fans are telling the officer how ridiculous it was we were being told if we disembark the coach we'll all get nicked. Eventually two police bikes escort us after an incredibly long wait another 100 metres and we're allowed to get off and you've now got several hundred irate away fans who wouldn't have been issue at all had it not been for over zealous police officers. All through that time there was still barely a handful of Stoke fans and had there been en mass all the coaches would have been sitting ducks.

I've been at Southend away in pre-season where they we were told if we sang at any point during the game we'd get nicked. Never have you heard a larger collection of pig noises over the course of 90 minutes and they'll surely have wished we were allowed to sing instead. At Blackburn we were treated like animals being herded in and I'm surprised there wasn't a riot. In fact at Sunderland there was a riot and you knew traveling up at the time that it wasn't going to be a day for the faint hearted and sensibly I didn't drink and when it all kicked off at half time with the riot police called in under the away stand I was mightily relieved not to have the need to be relieved if you catch my drift. Women and kids were coming up the stairs back from the concourse in floods of tears and it was apparently a full scale riot underneath and post game they couldn't separate the two sets of fans. I've been in Millwall where they held 5,000 travelling fans behind the large metal shutters after full time and after half hour, the police forces everyone to detour down through the back arches which had allowed a small section of their fans to bolt around and intersect. Maths clearly not a strong point in south London when they realise 200 against 5,000 is not a battle they're going to win. But again that all came down to police incompetence. I could go on. Thankfully though I've never encountered anyone with a shotgun at a football match. I've had one pointed out me from the back of a car window but that's a different story altogether. I also had a lad pull a blade from his trousers several inches long and make a gesture across his throat going through the Moss Side in Manchester less than a foot from me but thankfully they was the other side of a pane of glass. But all told I'm well aware that police in Europe on a Matchday can take an incredibly overzealous approach and are frequently the instigators. It's important to give both sides of any story. That still never acts as an excuse for fans behaviour in a lot of cases though it has to be said. The shortest guy on our coach away in Tottenham ended with his jaw broken and drinking his meals through a straw for a number of weeks all for trying to stop a group of lads from picking on another fan.

In 2018 five clubs are associated with the highest number of incidents at football matches in Portugal: Benfica, Porto, Sporting, Vitória and Braga. Cumulatively they were said to have more than 18,000 members. If that doesn't sound like many, remember that the vast majority of fans are just ordinary members of the matchday going public and have no association with ultras groups. In turn outside of Portugal's largest clubs, those remaining teams truly have small fans bases who attend on matchdays which I frequently highlight in my normal matchday posts. The vast majority of clubs have an average attendance of under 3,500 for home matches and even then that's only because their figures are swelled when the big clubs come to town. Over that total number reported by the PCP according to their estimate only 4,300 were officially registered. Among these are 995 casual members, the most radical and violent who disobey the police and cause disturbances; and 975 members who assaulted, robbed and trafficked drugs.

For ease I'm going to lift another paragraph from Valentina Marcelino’s report -

In the last five seasons (from 2013-2014 to 2017-2018), the PSP (Portuguese Public Security Police) recorded 10,532 "incidents" at professional football matches, representing a 134% increase in cases during this period. Last season, the Estádio da Luz topped the list, hosting 502 of the 2,100 incidents that occurred each matchday, 64% of which were perpetrated by the home team's supporters' groups. This was followed by the Estádio do Futebol Clube do Porto (FCP), with 442 cases, and Alvalade, with 427.

Firecrackers constituted the vast majority of those cases but there also followed examples of worse incidents pitch invasions; insults and threats against security forces, athletes, referees and other fans; possession and trafficking of drugs; robbery and theft; and incitement to violence, racism, xenophobia and intolerance in sports.

According to this police expert, "the casual subculture has been gaining prominence in the landscape of fan subcultures in Portugal. Its presence is evident in the most prominent organised fan groups, namely No Name Boys and Diabos Vermelhos, in the case of SL Benfica, and Juventude Leonina, in the case of Sporting."

According to this same source, the casuals of the No Name Boys claim "the lion's share of incidents related to sports-related violence. This subgroup simultaneously displays a non-cooperative attitude towards the police."

Note - Just to clarify the lion's share being the generic term, not the lion's share to mean Sporting's share given you'll notice I frequently refer to them as the lions.

Sporting is the club with the most registered members in its four organised fan groups: Juventude Leonina (1,632), Diretivo Ultras XXI (709), Torcida Verde (358) and Brigadas Ultras (238).

So there we have it, Sporting have the largest number of registered members which is of course a good thing as it means the police can more easily identify known trouble makers and it doesn't suggest in anyway shape or form that just because they had the largest number that this meant the club had a particular problem. But casual culture is clearly a growing problem in Portugal in 2018 and we will keep coming back to the links between Bruno de Carvalho and in particular the Juve Leo.

In another article written by Isaura Almeida much later in January of 2024 they reference the story of the Italian Marco Ficini, a Fiorentina fan who attended the Dérbi de Lisboa in April of 2017 with friends from Sporting’s ultra groups. Ficini was fatally run over near the Estádio da Luz, home of Benfica to clarify. Prosecutors for the case stated that his body was tragically "dragged for 15 meters.” The defendant in the case was Luís Pina who was linked to the Benfica fan group No Name Boys. Pina was originally sentenced to 4 years in prison for manslaughter by gross negligence, however he appealed the courts verdict and saw the Lisbon Court of Appeal partially overturn the verdict, returning the case to the Court of First Instance. For reference Sporting and Fiorentina are twinned. This was not the first tragedy associated with the club or this particular fixture. Way back in 1996 Sportinguista Rui Mendes tragically lost his life at the age of just 36 at the Taça de Portugal final when he was shot with a flare by a Benfica fan. De Carvalho would claim in a later interview to have been six rows away from Mendes when he was hit in the stand being used by the Sporting fans.

More examples associated with the No Name Boys; In 2022, eleven individuals linked to the supporters group were accused of attacks carried out between 2018 and 2020. Those attacks included the stoning of the Benfica team bus that injured players Zivkovic and Weigl. The Sintra Court only handed out suspended sentences for the convictions. The crimes recorded - simple damage, possession of a prohibited weapon, and simple threat, among others.

In another particularly grim case Almeida highlights the crime of aggravated rape in April 2022 of a minor under 16 years of age. According to the prosecution, the young man was taken behind a caravan, assaulted, robbed, and sodomised. Eight members of the No Name Boys were set to go on trial.

Almeida highlights more cases in the article associated with other clubs. In May of 2022 what should have been a day of celebration after Porto's title win ended up in the eventual death of Igor Silva having been stabbed 18 times. According to the prosecution, it was a settling of scores, but Marco Gonçalves, of the Super Dragões, and his son, along with five other people, were formally charged and began their trial that month.

In a chilling and telling line Almeida states -

Accusations and convictions for drug trafficking, possession of bladed weapons, and arson are constant in searches of fan group headquarters, almost always in facilities provided by the clubs in exchange for organised and unconditional support.

Just let that last bit sink in for a moment if you would please. Now whilst Benfica do not officially recognise the No Name Boys, Sporting recognised and continue to recognise their four largest claques. That last line again - almost always in facilities provided by the clubs in exchange for organised and unconditional support. In Sporting's case is that true and if so where are those facilities? Well once upon a time the first part may have been true but at certain points in time the bills for fines was passed over to the claques to pay. Yet it was certainly the case that the large four Sporting claques all had their headquarters within the Estádio José Alvalade, the home of Sporting CP.

It is not unfair to suggest that a blind eye was historically turned to certain sorts of behaviour. Certainly in Italy there were numerous examples of ultra groups profiteering from the sale of matchday tickets rather than the clubs, Lazio being a prime example and the Irriducibili under their leader Fabrizio Piscitelli more commonly known as Diabolik were making more money in unofficial merchandise than the club made in official wear. At its peak the business formed to handle merchandise known as Original Fans had 12 outlets and made Piscitelli a millionaire. In 2016 an estate of €2.3m was confiscated from him. Their range included t-shirts featuring Mr Enrich who was a bowler-hatted cartoon character. One assumes somewhat inspired by the film A Clockwork Orange but let's not go down another rabbit hole. Their leaders were in constant communication with the club and as I stated in a previous post they had offices at the club's ground and certainly would meet with figures as high as the club's vice president on a Matchday. Oh it should also be noted they had a portrait of Benito Mussolini on the wall of that office. Subtlety was not their speciality, they became renowned for swastika's, Roman salutes, anti-Semitism, plastering Anne Frank stickers as insults and hanging mannequins from bridges. Paolo Di Canio was one of the Lazio ultras before becoming a player and would be photographed giving the infamous Roman salute in celebration after scoring a goal for the club. In the end the ultras group disbanded with several of their leaders held on charges of extortion and illegal manipulation of share prices. In August 2019 Piscitelli was assassinated sitting on a park bench. Given the method of the shooting it was considered to have been a professional hit.

In short - Football clubs and sporting clubs, they have well documented problems with their supporters groups especially those who share a relationship which is too close to the figures at the top of the club. In this example that will follow, that being Bruno de Carvalho and the Juve Leo.

Bruno de Carvalho's behaviour was always noted as being somewhat erratic ever since he'd risen to the position of club president in March of 2013. Given his links to the Juve Leo in his teenage years and continued subsequent links with the group even as President, de Carvalho always envisaged that he was still one of the people. He'd forgotten to draw the line, failed to realise that whilst you will never stop being a fan of the club, for the time being at least its future rests in your hands. You need to act like a business leader not a spoilt child throwing his toys out of the pram because your players lost 2-0 away in Spain to Atlético de Madrid.

Being in a position of power can be challenging there's no denying that and the pressure that must come with running one of Portugal's footballing giants must have been immense. By 2018 the strain had really started to show and not just behind the scenes but publicly too on Facebook posts and I'm not just talking about the ones that followed the loss to Atlético de Madrid in the Europa League. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. In retrospect he should have distanced himself from the Claques and certainly allowed himself to have taken better council from the clubs board. What was about to go down at Alcochete ultimately will have everyone's accusing fingers pointing back to him. No one is suggesting he doesn't have certain rights as the club president to question things within the organisation. At the end of it all the buck stops with him. He hires and fires the coaches, he signs off on player acquisitions and sales and hundreds of thousands of fans of the club worldwide are expecting him to have made the right choices. Personally I don't envy him. Yet there are ways and means of handling problems when they arise. Tact and diplomacy are required, something that de Carvalho never seemed to be blessed with. We've seen managers throw their players under the bus time and time again and in truth in them doing so it rarely brings about anything positive. Where once upon a time the football clubs held all the power, with every changing season that power had now swung towards the players. Going to war with the them is never going to end well because your success is utterly dependent on them. But a war of words is one thing…

De Carvalho rose to power in part because of his ego. The problem when you have a big ego is that it constantly needs stroking. It's an addiction and when you're running a football club you're essentially always gambling at a casino with high stakes. Get it wrong too many times and the consequences can be disastrous especially when you're basically gambling with other people's money. The more things start to go wrong, the worse your decision process starts to become and when things get that bad, rarely do you ever listen to good advice because you're too busy listening to the voices in your own head fuelling your paranoia. Or maybe you're still listening but only to those who keep fuelling your ego and lead you down a path you should never have taken the first step onto.

In the earlier part of the 2017/18 season rumours circulated that de Carvalho may resign. In posts to Facebook he complained of being “tired” and stated that he “felt alone.” Frequently he'd de-activate his account only to resurface once more online. He'd have done better to have stuck with his original choice, also choosing rather unwisely to frequently interact with supporters online.

Then came the very public Atlético de Madrid post game fall out that was discussed at length in the last instalment. Then finally we moved to Madeira for the last game of the season which ended in a 2-1 defeat to the hands of Marítimo. All through that period we've so far concentrated on de Carvalho but now we're going to switch our attention to certain sections of the fan base who as where about to discover are about to take matters into their own hands. As I wrote above going into a war of words is one thing, taking physical action is quite another and that's the problem when you have the ear of your club president, you clearly think you can act with impunity.

Trouble was brewing before the players even managed to get off the island of Madeira. Whilst it might have been beneficial to the players that the game was 1,000 kilometres away which severely limited the number of Sportinguista's in attendance, those who did go included some of the clubs most influential fans such as Fernando Mendes, one of the leaders of the Juve Leo. Given Madeira is an island and it only has a small airport, at some point the players and a set of very irate fans were bound to cross paths. According to CMTV and the Diário de Notícias da Madeira, Mendes was amongst those involved in an altercation between fans and the players. Two were singled out for particular treatment, Marcos Acuña and Rodrigo Battaglia. Mendes is reported to have stated during the confrontation "see you in Alcochete.”

Sidebar - I've mentioned this before but to reiterate that Alcochete is a municipality in Portugal which happens to also be the home of the Sporting CP training ground. Then known as Academia de Alcochete and now known as the Academia Cristiano Ronaldo. Therefore Mendes in his confrontation with Acuña and Battaglia was insinuating that something was going to go down upon their return to the mainland. Now to be fair if you were the players you'd probably heard it all before and didn't batter an eyelid. Lots of people make empty threats. The general rule of thumb in life is that if you give prior warnings and threats then it's not going to happen because if you really wanted to do something then you wouldn't want to broadcast it in advance. Right? No one would be that stupid would they. Would they?

Let's assume that the players and coaching staff all flew back to Lisboa on May the 13th. This leaves them a week to gather their thoughts and pick themselves up from their disappointment and go to Jamor the following Sunday and at least potentially end the season on a high. Let's be reasonable here, it wasn't like they couldn't still play in European competition it was just that they would be in the less financially lucrative Europa League. But the club finances, they're OK aren't they Bruno? You've not pinned everything on qualifying for the Champions League right?

After the very public spat between 19 of the players and Bruno de Carvalho played out on social media, it's not hard to imagine several of them had no sooner been done with hitting ‘post’ before they'd gotten on their phones to their agents and demanded that they get them out of the club. I mean would you have really wanted to stay in the same situation where the club president questions your commitment? Maybe in a twisted way he was even right if those types of conversations with agents were happening but the question is would they have happened if it wasn't for de Carvalho? In some instances maybe but players wanting moves to bigger clubs for more money is commonplace for all teams worldwide. Wanting to get out because of de Carvalho in charge feels like a basic survival skill.

It's probable with flying back from Madeira that the players were given the Monday off from training and told to return on Tuesday May the 15th. If Fernando Mendes words in Madeira airport had sounded hollow and an empty threat then the players were about to discover otherwise and would end up being Sporting Clube de Portugal’s darkest ever day. Early indications were that around fifty fans, and here we should use the term fans loosely, forced their way into the training ground where Jorge Jesus and his players were due to be undertaking training. In the main covering their faces in an attempt to avoid identification they set about assaulting players, staff and caused damage to a changing room. Jorge Jesus was singled out along with Rui Patrício, William Carvalho and Bas Dost the man that has bagged you 27 goals in the league and 34 goals in all competitions came off worst of all those physically attacked. This remember with the backdrop of the Taça de Portugal in five days time. Even now close to eight years on at the time of writing (though the anniversary will have passed by the time you're reading this), it really does beggar belief. One that anyone would ever choose to perform the attack but two by doing so you're doing irreparable damage to the club which you claim to support. That's reputational, emotional, financial, psychological and that’s before you even get to the physical damage sustained by some of your players who lets not forget are due to play in the Portuguese Cup Final. Fifty so called fans who have elected themselves the arbiters of justice all because a football team lost a couple of games of football. Attacking players and staff and destroying club property wasn't being done on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of Sportinguista's whose own reputation would be forever tarnished by association for events they had no part in, nor would 99.9% of them wished to have ever seen. This was all one giant willy waving competition by a group of small minded fucking halfwits. Waving white hankies in the stands is one thing, you can boo, whistle and jeer to your heart's content. But sticks and stones do break bones. We're having to contend with people's egos once more and not just the one of Bruno de Carvalho. Those who are orchestrating the attacks are very powerful and dangerous people who are clearly unafraid of the consequences and I come back to this notion of feeling like they were acting both with licence and impunity. The question would be had someone else greenlit the attacks and encouraged them to take place?

Incredibly despite the attacks in which the players and staff were clearly left shaken and certainly in the case of Bas Dost physically damaged having sustained head injuries, the game on Sunday would still go ahead as planned. So on May 20th, 2018 Sporting lined up with a starting XI of Patrício, Ristovski, Coates, Mathieu, Coentrão, William, Battaglia, Fernandes, Gelson, Acuña and Bas Dost in front of a crowd of 35,890 to take on Desportivo das Aves. Forward Alexandre Guedes opened the scoring on 15 minutes and added a second on 71 minutes. At half time Jesus brought on Montero for William and on 62 Mišić for Coentrão. Montero would pull one back six minutes from time but the beleaguered lions despite their best efforts lost the game 2-1 and Desportivo won their first ever Taça de Portugal.

Their fairytale didn't last long though. Firstly they were swiftly denied a licence to play in Europe. They were relegated in the 2019/20 season with five games to play. Their financial problems were so bad that the league took the step of relegating them to the third tier and on September 23rd, 2020 they withdrew from the league.

I'll be perfectly honest I'm not aware if talks went on to get the game postponed with the Portuguese FA or whether their opponents were approached so I don't want to cast aspersions on either the body or the opposing club but common sense should have dictated that the game shouldn't have gone ahead. One imagines it only did because of the players pride and for the actual fans who had no involvement with the attacks who would roundly come out in condemnation of what had occurred.

Now many of those details were taken from court extracts and if they seem sparse that's because I'll introduce the full picture whilst those cases are ongoing and we will discover exactly what happened in the fall out. However if you're left thinking that getting the players to appear at the final had been relatively straightforward despite the attack and we've heard nothing from the club president whose behaviour has been so erratic then you'd be right to have your suspicions. Just when you think you've looked under all the rocks you find another one and another story crawls out from underneath showing its claws wanting to get in on the action.

I'm going to first take you back to our last post at the start of the 2017/18 and focus in on the sale of Rúben Semedo for €14m. In February of 2018 the former academy graduate was arrested and awaiting trial on charges of attempted murder, kidnapping, assault and robbery. Semedo would spend a total of 141 days in a remanded custody in a jail in Picassent, Valencia. He was released in July 2018 on bond after paying a bail of €30,000. The accusations centre around him assaulting a man inside his home. Reports in Spain claimed that the victim was allegedly “tied, beaten and held by Semedo and two other men,” inside Semedo’s Vila on February 12th, 2018. It's also alleged that the victim had bruises on several parts of his body, an ankle injury that left him on crutches and one of the attackers had fired a gun near him to intimidate him. Not a great look it has to be said and he denied all the claims through his agent. Now given Semedo was now a Villarreal player it was thankfully for Bruno de Carvalho and Sporting CP - not their problem. They could wash their hands of the whole affair and the fact he'd come through the academy at Alcochete was neither here nor there. You could allege that based on the reports it might have even been handy had Semedo still been a Sporting player come the attacks in May. Sporting get dragged into the affair through Gelson Martins who has under his match shirt and handwritten T shirt in support of his former teammate which gets an airing after he scores a last minute winner against Moreirense. Having already been booked and with players given an automatic booking for taking their shirts off, he was promptly sent off. The message for Semedo - Cu bo ti fim do Mundo RS35 (with you until the end of the World) with the former teammates initials and squad number just so everyone knew for definite who the message was for. Something he had also posted on his Instagram account along with a photo of himself with Semedo. The sending off not only earns the player an automatic one match ban but how brings one of its players into close association with a former player arrested on charges of amongst other things attempted murder. Now maybe you can be forgive de Carvalho to the tiniest of degrees when he finally snaps and goes full Donkey Kong on his players after the 2-0 Atlético Madrid defeat in Spain. They're not going to have been helping his already suffering mental health with stunts like that which are reported on not only in Portugal and neighbouring Spain but also in the English media and further afar bringing into question the reputation of Sporting CP and tarnishing it's brand by association.

You want to find out what's under the next rock? OK, if we must, I've been promising your fireworks throughout.

In the buildup to the final in Jamor the Sun Newspaper alleges that following the last day defeat to Marítimo Bruno de Carvalho suspended the mister Jorge Jesus. What time and date was that article published? 10.32 on the morning of May 15th, 2018. The players alleged response to the mister being suspended? They threatened to Boycott the final. It's reported that the club's board was then forced into a crisis meeting. The article confirms that after Rui Patrício’s howler, the keeper was subjected to quite vociferous treatment by the irate fans. Vociferous being my choice of word by the way. This is the Sun Newspaper we're talking about. Even before they reach the airport they're claiming that the keeper needed additional protection.

It is then alleged that it's de Carvalho who calls the crisis meeting and takes the decision to suspend Jesus with the Taça de Portugal less than a week away. Portuguese media were then apparently reporting that William and Patrício were preparing to boycott the final in solidarity with their mister. The plan was for the goalkeeping coach Nelson Pereira and Luis Martins, coach of Sporting B to have taken charge instead at the final. When pressed De Carvalho however denied these reports and instead insisted “nobody was suspended.” The reason was because of the cash windfall the club would miss out on. I have no doubt that may have been discussed but there's no smoke without fire and de Carvalho was a smoking gun. The events that followed clearly overtook that story.

On June 30th, 2018 the debt reported to the markets was £98.56m. Twelve months later it had jumped a whopping 36.03% to around £130m. There had been bigger jumps in history, between June 30th 2011 and 2012 it increased 145.77% and then a further 43.91% in June 2013. Carvalho actually reduced the debt in June of 2015 by 36.18% and despite two rises by the end of this financial year he'd bring it down another 11.79%. But when you don't have Champions League money coming in then you're forced to sell. What's generally your club's only assets? The players. Those same ones who 50 of your fans have just attacked, some of whom cannot get out the door fast enough and by the quickest route possible.

Next we'll follow the fallout of all the parties involved and trace what happened to each set involved. As the title of the series suggests you already know where it's heading for Bruno de Carvalho - his fall.