Sporting CP v Nottingham Forest

Sporting CP v Nottingham Forest
Pre season Friendly 
31st July 2026
Algarve

The Warm up

I wonder what the mister Rui Borges' requisites were for choosing pre-season opponents for the 2026/27 season. Give me two clubs who had four coaches in the 2025/26 season and two from France who either currently don't reside in France itself or who historically have resided in a different country. If that was the case then whoever did the bookings has excelled themselves. For alongside Glasgow Celtic who went from Brendan Rodgers to Martin O'Neill, Willfred Nancy and back to Martin O'Neill, we've added Nottingham Forest who went from Nuno Espírito Santo who was sacked on September 8th, Ange Postecoglu sacked after 39 days on October 20th (that's 6 days more than Nancy managed btw), Sean Dyche sacked on February 12th with Vítor Pereira taking over on February 15th. And you thought we had a busy season with swapping misters in the 2024/25 season.

Given we've not even kicked a ball yet and André Villas-Boas has already confirmed that Varandas and Sporting have been living rent free in his head all summer with an interview he did recently, perhaps the real reason we're playing Forest is because they dumped FC Porto out of Europe. Now that's clearly a joke but you could actually imagine Porto welcoming Arsenal for that exact same reason. Maybe their owner is fed up of watching his Rio Ave team lose to the lions and was the one who requested the fixture in reverse?

You have to imagine that last season may have aged more than a handful of Forest fans somewhat prematurely, what with their four changes of mister, battling relegation from the Premier League and incredibly despite all that a run to the Europa League semi finals. One thing you cannot accuse the club of being last season is dull even if for long periods they were making headlines for all the wrong reasons. There was definitely a sense of karmidic justice handed out to the club having taken Crystal Palace’s place in the Europa League whilst the London club took their place in the Europa Conference League. Palace would them not only go onto win that tournament with Forest going out in the semi finals but by virtue of that win, they'd go on to qualify for this season's Europa League. There's a huge degree of truth in the statement of being careful what you wish for. 

The club were founded in 1865 making them an incredible 161 years old. They're currently owned by Evangelos Maranakis who also counts Olympiacos and Rio Ave amongst the other clubs he owns. He was spotted at the last Portuguese fixture between the two sides and gave a Romanesque thumbs down to one of the goals scored by the lions whilst still clinging onto a fat cigar in his executive box. Also famed for having a Steve Jobs style wardrobe albeit he seems to just own very large white t-shirts rather than black rollneck tops. Most commonly known as Forest, they're also known as The Garibaldi's, The Reds and the Tricky Trees though I'd never heard of the last one until this last campaign ironically enough so maybe it's a local thing? Home, for now at least is the 30,445 capacity City Ground though if memory serves me correctly the owner did have a falling out with the council over the ground in quite recent memory and threatened to build them a new home. 

Currently they're still coached by Vítor Pereira though by the time I'd written the Celtic post and mentioned Hearts boss Derek McInnes and put it up online he'd fucked off to Rangers and similarly Gary O’Neil at Strasbourg also looks like he's off to Ipswich Town before we play the, so that may have also been corrected by the time we play Forest especially given their penchant for change in the dugout. He has in a past life been the mister of both Santa Clara and FC Porto amongst a host of others. 

They were formed by a group of shinty players which is something I've never written before in my life though oddly I watched a lot of hours of it as a kid as well as hurling and Gaelic football much to my disgust when my Granddad came to visit. In their early years they followed the tradition of European clubs such as Sporting playing in various disciplines alongside association football (more commonly known as soccer to distinguish itself from rugby football - rugger). Bandy and Baseball were another two sports they were well established in during their early days. Neighbours Notts County famously donated some of their black and white kit to Juventus which they still have as their kit colour choice to this very day and clearly Nottingham was a very kind hearted community with Forest donating their red kit to Arsenal when the London club was formed. Nottingham - international trend setters and also home I believe to fashion designer Paul Smith so there's something in the water. 

I don't think I'm being rude to our opponents when I say they're probably best known on the world footballing stage for the period under legendary managerial duo of Brian Clough and Peter Taylor. Under their stewardship they won back to back European Cup finals (now Champions League) in 1979 and 1980 if that feet wasn't remarkable enough it has to be noted that in the 1976/77 season Forest were still only a second division side (Now Championship). They then won the 1977/78 First Division title (now Premier League) which is what allowed qualification to Europe's elite cup competition. These were the days when only the domestic Champions would qualify, none of this modern day nonsense where the Premier League can potentially have five or six teams depending on various permutations. Sporting of course owe their automatic qualification to Aston Villa beating Manchester City on the last day. I won't remind Sportinguista's what we were doing on the same day. Clough inadvertently made Trevor Francis the first million pound footballer in English football although he tried to get the deal done for £999,999 so as not to let it go to the players head. The 15% commission actually took the deal to £1,150,000 so that one backfired. Clough would stay with the club all the way until 1993 by which time their heyday was long since done. In 1999 they were relegated back to the second division. 

On May 18th, 2017 Marinakis took ownership of the club. He would spend the best part of five seasons firing more coaches including Martin O’Neill who'll be bringing his Celtic side to the Algarve this summer, until finally in the 2021/22 season Steve Cooper proved to finally be the right man to lead them back to the top flight of English football, doing it via the play offs. I lost count of how many players Alverca signed last summer but Forest would have come close when they signed 21 new players in their first season back in the top flight of English football. Cooper lasted until December 2023 when he was replaced by the Portuguese coach Nuno Espírito Santos. He came so close to taking the club into the Champions League but results tailed off dramatically towards the end of the campaign but as previously mentioned they benefited from taking Palace's place in the Europa League. That stemmed from John Textor being a part owner of both Palace and Ligue 1 side Lyon who has also qualified for the same competition. That's the same Lyon who Ligue 1 bosses had penalised and kicked out of the French top flight for financial irregularities and truthfully they shouldn't have been readmitted or given a licence to play in Europe meaning Textor’s part ownership in Palace would have therefore been irrelevant and Forest iwould have had to have played in the Conference League. Still it all worked out for Palace in the end. They got shot of Textor as an added bonus as did Lyon. Their finances of course helped by flipping Afonso Moreira this summer. Let's hope we're haven't shot ourselves in the foot for a third season straight after Mateus Fernandes and Moreira, with the sale of Diogo Travossos to Sporting Braga for a bag of peanuts.

Forest will of course come closer to the lions this summer than Jota Silva actually achieved last summer. After weeks of indecisiveness on the lions part they finally tried to get his signing done on deadline day only to submit the paperwork too late. We can only wonder as to what his impact might have been. 

Forest finished last season in 16th place, five points above the relegation zone. Their record played 38, won 11, drawn 11, lost 16, GF 48, GA 51. They're set to lose star player Elliot Anderson when he returns to the country after the World Cup with England. He's set for a 9 figure transfer fee with Manchester City his most likely destination though United have been reportedly interested in his services as well. Depending on how far England progress in the tournament it's highly unlikely that he wouldn't be on holiday when this fixture is played even if he is still a Forest player. One imagines they'll also face a task to keep hold of Morgan Gibbs-White who was subject to a bid from Tottenham last summer. You have to imagine however they there may be one or two faces who get left behind in Portugal and turn up playing for sister club Rio Ave over the next twelve months. 

The two sides have met just the once before, that coming in a pre-season friendly way back in 2009 when Forest won 1-0. 

We'll leave the last word for now to Martim Fernandes whose incredible long range own goal helped Forest to beat FC Porto 2-1 over two legs. Yes it's petty but compared to the fucking nonsense from André Villas-Boas I'm not apologising for it.