Sporting CP 2 FC Arouca 2
Sporting CP v Arouca
Sunday September 20th, 2026
Estádio José Alvalade
Matchday 7
Referee: David Silva
The warm up
These Matchday posts are a mixture of part fact, part opinion and I always try to bring something different every season. I could just copy and paste what went before given they're read by so few people in the world but I'd feel like I'd be cheating those who do read them and myself and I'd only be one click away from being found out and so I don't. I am not an AI tool although I guess you could train an AI tool to say that easy enough. I've never asked AI to write me a piece, in fact I wouldn't know how. But I've tried to do research using it and quite frankly it's about as much help as a chocolate teapot. If you know nothing about a subject it'll get you into trouble. I asked the question yesterday of Sporting CP’s record against French clubs. It told me definitively that they'd never met PSG. What about the 2-1 win in last season's Champions League I asked? It checked again and who knew - I was correct. Human 1 AI 0. Long story short, some openings are easier to find than others. No shit you say. This season we've used Celtic as an excuse to talk about Jamestown Analytics, brought you the history of Strasbourg through two World Wars and the struggles of being owned by BlueCo. We've done two pieces on Evangelos Marinakis and his control of Nottingham Forest and Rio Ave. I've probably squeezed that one dry now to be fair. Last week we did a focus on Famalicão's billionaire owner and tried to ask the question of what was in it for him in respects of his ownership? We've already done the story about Arouca’s owner, his arrest and subsequent conviction in a past season. As you've guessed this one hasn't been easy on finding a starting point. But then I stumbled upon a couple of facts that seem to have passed me by totally over all my years of watching Portuguese football. Or maybe they didn't. Maybe I read them before, forgot through old age and get to act really surprised again. FC Arouca are a Christmas baby and not only that they were set up as a branch of FC Porto. I've joked before about Portugal being the pioneers of multi club ownership decades before it was ever an actual thing but it is true to a large degree and maybe that's another reason why clubs are so poorly supported? Because why support a watered down version of something when the real thing still exists? I did enjoy a fan of a rival club claiming that during Sporting's summer rebranding that they'd stolen the lion from the crest of SC Farense. That would be the same Farense who were set up as branch number 2 of Sporting CP would it? Great - thanks for highlighting your own stupidity. Maybe in Portugal they have their own version of the twelve days of Christmas? On the first day of Christmas FC Porto gave to me, a shiny new football team… Of course when you know, just like with the Farense crest, things suddenly make more sense - like why Arouca have a round badge with the crown on the top. It's identikit in the basic design to that of FC Porto's. So there you go, there's your fun fact for the day to bore your friends with. Founded December 25th, 1951 and if anyone asks you what they do in Portugal on Christmas Day having done their celebrations on Christmas Eve, the answer is they found football clubs. Beats a family argument over a game of Monopoly I suspect.
Just like the tradition of Christmas, Arouca it appears are set on mounting a title bid that lasts all of 1 or 2 rounds. Last season after beating AVS 3-1 at home on Matchday 1 they went top only to be spanked 6-0 away by Sporting. Title bid done and dusted. This season they beat Vitória 1-0 and then their 4-0 home win against Moreirense saw them top the table again! … and then they lost to the mothership FC Porto 2-0. One assumes all ties are now severed between the two sides so maybe not Mothership FC and it would be FC Mothership... Anyway's moving on (Definately not AI written). Maybe we'll see them top the table in a later round one year but at least their fans can claim to have seen them top. Small wins and moral victories if nothing else.
They're still coached by every mermaids favourite support act Vasco Seabra who will have been with the club two years next month which in Portuguese football is an impressive tenure. Last season he guided them to an impressive eighth place finish and were even higher than SC Vitória albeit level on points and by virtue of their head to head record. It still counts. Their record read played 34, won 12, drawn 6 lost 16. GF 47, GA 64. Only AVS who finished bottom conceded more goals with 67. At home they had the 10th best record, played 17, won 7, drawn 4, lost 6. GF 27, GA 30. On the road again played 17, 5 wins, 2 draws and 10 defeats and yet still the 8th best record in the division. GF 20, GA 34. We've already mentioned their 6-0 thumping at the José Alvalade, way from home Sporting needed a winner five minutes into additional time from Luis Suárez to claim all 3 points in a 2-1 victory.
Of their 47 goals scored 32 were from open play, 13 set pieces, 1 penalty and 1 own goal. They smashed their xG of 36 by a full 11 goals. Top scorers were Trezza with 9, Barbero with 8, Hyun-Ju Lee with 7, Djouahea with 6. Nine further players with 4 goals or less.
Sixth highest average goals per game with 1.4. Unsurprisingly second worst average for goals conceded per game if you join the dots to what was written earlier, with 1.9. Seven clean sheets which is roughly one in every five games played.
11th highest total for shots on target per match with 3.6. 12th for big chances missed with 37 which was just over 50% of the 70 that Sporting missed. The beneficiaries of just 2 penalties all season, also not helped by the fact they missed one of those. Moreirense had 2, Famalicão 1, everyone else 5 or more. Braga had a whopping 17 and that's just in the league. Feels like they'll equal that number in European competition this season. They conceded 9 penalties by way of comparison.
The only metric they were number one in was most sendings off with 10 in total. If you're averaging a clean sheet every five games and a sending off in every three games it feels like a recipe for disaster and entertainment in equal measures, albeit maybe not if you're an Arouca fan.
Full disclosure as always I'm writing these now well in advance and it's the day after our 4-0 win away to Rio Ave. Given I've nothing much more to add about Arouca let's switch focus to the start of the lions campaign. This is after all supposed to be a Sporting CP blog.
Any football team around the world is only as good as the collective sum of it's parts, a fact that a huge number of fans seem to overlook. I could trot out a huge number of popular narratives you may have come across in recent seasons with very little thought; Sporting CP were only successful in recent years because of Ruben Amorim as coach. Sporting CP only won back to back titles because of having Viktor Gyökeres up front. Rui Borges only won two titles because he inherited Ruben Amorim's team. I won't go on, I think you get the point. They may have all been contributing factors in their succeses, but just as equal would have been the drop off in those seasons of the other two members of Os Três Grandes; Benfica and FC Porto.
If winning the double after Amorim left for Manchester United was so easily done then João Pereira wouldn't now be coaching in Turkey. Amorim didn't just pack up his bags and leave, he took his entire coaching setup with him in tandem. Suddenly Pereira was thrust into the limelight despite not having the requisite coaching qualifications, it was too much too soon. Amorim clearly paid a huge part in the success we achieved but it was as I say a collective sum of all the parts. From him as the mister, his coaching staff, the players, Hugo Viana as the Sporting Director, Frederico Varandas as the Club President. You've got scouts, data analysts, youth coaches, João Pereira coaching Sporting B, one of the best academy setups in European and World Football. We didn't win league titles solely because of Ruben Amorim was the mister any more than we didn't win a third straight league title because of Rui Borges last time out.
Criticising is so easy to do. But what those who criticise probably never consider is they're doing so on an assumption of what they think should be happening out on the pitch. They're not privy to what the mister tells them in training, what his specific tactics are game to game. It's a copy and paste narrative as well, nothing is ever an original thought. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy of a…
At the beginning of last season one if the constant criticisms was that Rui Borges wasn't starting João Simões. No consideration to the fact that as the mister he'd have access to the medical data for the player and would know how to manage his recovery from long term injury which is exactly what he did. Even despite this he had ended up in the exact same spot with his season finished earlier with another breakage. Now it's the name of Rafael Nel who impressed in pre-season. He really did, there's no disputing that. But it was against a really poor set of teams who were far behind Sporting in their preparations. Every player looked great in pre-season yet not so much in the opening three matches. So why do they assume that Rafael Nel would buck the trend? You've got constant stories in the press about Luis Suárez being repeated as gospel truth. Unless you were there and had eyes on, shut the fuck up. I'm fucking sick of it. This all stems from one man who is famously stood having a photograph taken holding an FC Porto shirt with his name on it stood next to a smiling André Villas-Boas. Coincidence with the Fenerbahçe transfer talk? I think not. There's hundreds of strikers in World football and yet Suárez is the one you claim you'll sign? If you can't smell the bullshit in all of it you need your fucking head examined quite frankly. Moreover your noses unblocking clearly. Then more bullshit about storming off at training and allegedly falling out with Pote. If you're FC Porto and you've no transfer budget then trying to derail Luis Suárez, the top goalscorer in Portugal last season by using your contacts in the Portuguese press makes total sense. It seems to be working too and is far cheaper than a transfer and additional wages. I get that fans of other clubs stirring the pot but you have to be incredibly self serving to continually shit on your own doorstep for followers and likes trumpeting a narrative against your own club and players. Yet back to Nel and the narrative from those who apparently know best that he should have been brought on instead of Suárez in the opening rounds. It may have escaped people's attention that Luis Suárez was the top goalscorer in Portugal last season. If a small minority argue that Nel should be given the opportunity over the Colombian can you imagine the far larger fall out if Rui Borges had done it under his own volition? The large majority would think he'd lost leave of his senses. Anyone with an ounce of common sense should ignore the talk around the Colombian as anything other than another attempt to destabilise Sporting CP who've upset the apple cart and the status quo in recent seasons. André Villas-Boas and FC Porto have shit so many bricks about Sporting you could have the foundations for a new suburb in the north or Portugal. With the injury to Fotis Ioannidis last campaign he was left to do all the work because we saw Nel wasn't yet good enough to fulfil that roll. Yet suddenly after a summer off he is just because he scores against some opponents who weren't at the races? Do me a favour.
Footballers are humans. The body and the mind needs rest. The Colombian went to the World Cup on top of a long season with the lions. He's not had the same time off as some of the other squad members. He came back to pre-season later than everyone else which has a knock on effect on his match fitness which means the question of whether Borges should start him or not is an easy one for him because he's not daft enough to jeopardise his star forward picking up an injury that would keep him out for weeks. Sure the Colombian might not be pleased with that but you want players who want to be on the pitch. Football agents don't always advise their clients in what's best for their client, they do it for their own bottom line. We learned first hand the tactics used by Viktor Gyökeres’ agent to manufacture his exit and it wasn't pleasant for all parties involved. I'm writing the day after the win against Rio Ave, a game in which Luis Suárez scored a brace, to add to his goal against Alverca on Matchday 3, both games in which he started having had his game time managed by the man who actually has access to the data. Yes the Colombian has an attitude but the Latin temperament isn't a myth. You'll see fans applaud Maxi Araújo for being in your face and confrontational but we're supposed to question when Luis Suárez does the same thing? Give over would you. Footballers are employees. They have families to support, mouths to feed, mortgages to pay, cars to fuel just like the next person. Being a footballer doesn't make them any different. It's a job for them first and foremost. If you went from working at Tesco to Sainsbury's no one would claim you'd sold out. Yet Palhinha signs for Benfica having once been a lion and my God the abuse starts with accusations that he's a wife beater, a pedophile and the rest. It's disgusting. The stupidity and actions of a minority shouldn't effect the majority but somehow shit floats to the top of the surface. Bad news travels fast and it appears gossip and lies travel even faster especially with the advent of social media. You only need to plant a few seeds in the right place, add a little water and sunlight and within hours they've grown with full branches reaching in every direction.
Even a decade on I read some absolute nonsense from our fans online. When Marco Silva was announced as the mister of Benfica I read a claim that he'd engineered his way out of Sporting CP. This despite the fact that the club fired him citing just cause with a 400 page document. You'd have to go some to deliberately fill 400 pages with your own behaviour to engineer a way out of your contract and to then have to agree not to sign for another Portuguese club as coach.
I'm not saying fans cannot have an opinion but if you're trying to be the next Gary Neville and acting like a self serving twat for likes and followers and you're not getting paid for it then maybe it's time to re-evaluate your life choices. Similarly to those who just want to be right whatever the cost. You create a narrative on day one that you're not changing whatever happens. You go dormant on the subject for weeks and months and then at the first opportunity you're climbing out of your hole and trying to stick the knife in. Why? What's in it for you? What would actually bring you genuine enjoyment in your life? What's wrong with your life that you get your kicks raining on someone else's parade?
I'm not perfect. There are things I've written and said over the years that make my toes curl quite frankly and I wish people had called me out on it. Actually sometimes they did and the issue was that I didn't listen. Change and growth is always possible in people. At the end of it all football is just as a game. No one really knows what the exact quote Bill Shankly said about football being more than life and death. It's not. If your identity is so reliant on a football club then you're doing it wrong. This is how we ended up with the Alcochete attacks. Thankfully with social media these type of clowns can just rant online rather than turn up at training grounds but none of the discourse helps the club on any level. Certainly not like a united front would do and ensuring that the propaganda wing of FC Porto had no affect on the club. Maybe we should make a Sporting CP gif and hand it out to everyone that has a social media account stating simply ‘Smells like bullshit to me’ and have them reply to posts of fans of any other club criticising our players or the institution as a whole. No getting into any arguments just a simple shut down. But mostly think about what you're posting and why you're doing it. Does it benefit the club and it's players in any way shape or form? Or is it just you being a self serving twat? I'm willing to bet in 99% of the cases it'll fall into the latter. Does that make me the 1%? Lord no. But I'm trying to do better with every year that passes. I'm not after followers, I'm not chasing likes. I don't want to make a penny from what I write. I just want a clean page with no adverts that you can read in one go without being bombarded with nonsense. Click here to continue reading … why couldn't I have just continued to read without clicking a fucking button? That's what I did with a newspaper for fucks sakes. Right rant over. Do better people's you know.
Anyway's back to Arouca.
Summer Transfer Window
Incoming
Martim Duarte - Amarante (Free)
Mateo Flores - Real Betis £1.2m
Si-Hoo Park - Chungnam Asan £155,000
Mario Climent - Cadiz (Free)
Ortest Lebedenko - Vitória €400,000
Gabriel Rukavina - Rijeka (Free)
Leo Shahar - Newcastle (Loan)
Outgoing
João Valido - Chaves (Free)
Amadou Dante - FC Zbrojovka Brno (Free)
Arnau Solà - Atlético Madrileno (loan)
Matías Rocha - Union (Free)
Vladislav Morozo - Kolding IF £172,000
Romualdas Jansonas - Ourense (Loan)
Nico Mantl - Released
Arouca 2026/27 season to date
Matchday 1 - Vitória (A) 0-1 W
Arouca took the lead on 52 minutes when Vitória defender Rivas passed straight to Naïs Djouahara in error, who promptly squared to Barbero who tucked it into the bottom right hand corner from 15 yards. Arouca were reduced to ten men 2 minutes after the 90 when Monteiro was shown a second yellow for a lunging challenge on the far side of the field on Silva. Despite his claims to have taken the ball he launched the Vitória player in the air and was probably fortunate in hindsight not to be given a straight red and will only be banned for the next match. In the end Barbero's goal enough for all three points.Xg 2.22 - 0.49
Total Attempts 24 - 4
Big Chances 3 - 1
Big Chances Missed 3 - 0
Matchday 2 - Moreirense (H) 4-0 W
Despite only registering 4 attempts on their opening day, Arouca came away from Guimarães with a 1-0 win and all 3 points. Moreirense had managed a creditable 2-2 draw at home to Braga. Arouca came closest to breaking the deadlock, Trezza saw his close range effort flash past the far post 12 minutes in. On 22' Maracás slices in Lebedenko's low cross past his own keeper to open the scoring and make it 1-0 to Arouca.
xG 2.14 - 0.49
Total Attempts 14 - 5
Shots on target 6 - 1
Big Chances 3 - 1
Big Chances Missed 1 - 1
Matchday 4 - Marítimo (H) 2-1 W
The Lobos were looking to get back to winning ways after their first defeat of the campaign to FC Porto last time out against one of the two newly promoted sides. Going into the game the side from Madeira were unbeaten in their opening 3 fixtures collecting 7 of 9 possible points on offer.
On 11' van Ee's vicious effort from 24 yards skimmed off the top of the islanders cross bar and behind to safety. Butter fingers from Pastor when he dropped a harmless long range Fukui free kick from 32 yards onto the feet of Tejón but the keeper recovered well enough to push the Spaniards effort out for a corner. On 22' the home side had their own cross bar to thank after really good work to fashion a chance for Andrade from 8 yards. Suspicion that the Arouca keeper got the faintest of touches on the shot before it cannoned back off the bar and to safety. It was Tejón who smashed home the opening goal from 12 yards on 26' and I wonder if de Arruabarrena was suffering from a clash of heads because all of a sudden he's shown wearing a swimming cap.
Touch of fortune to the equaliser on 44' as van Ee's effort from 8 yards deflected up off a defender and over Pastor into the net. It was all too easy for Barbero to head home unmarked from 3 yards from Gozálbez's perfectly floated cross on 54' and the home side ahead for the first time in the game. The Wolves forwards goal proving to be the winner. Three wins from four for them.
Matchday 5 - Estoril (A) 0-0 D
Having been treated to 12 goals across 180 minutes between the two sides last season, they seem to have used their entire quota up for Portugal's Monday night offering. May I suggest a timely reminder that scoring goals isn't as easy as some would have you believe. Both sides will come away thinking they should have claimed all 3 points and maybe would had it not been for some poor finishing.
Now rather unhelpfully despite watching the second half I didn't think to make notes and the YouTube highlights are corrupted on both V Sport channels and haven't been corrected. Carvalho hit the post on 73' for Estoril. Begraoui could have won it two minutes past the 90 and somewhere in between those two efforts Arouca fluffed their lines. I want to say it was Dylan Nandín who could have won it for them but I might be lying. With apologies.
Matchday 6 - Santa Clara (H) 1-2 L
13' Lebendenko drew a save from Lucas França with a speculative 25 yard effort for the home side. 21' The visitors took the lead through Gonçalo Paciência with a really smart first time finish from 10 yards. Shades of Bas Dost. 35' Golazzo from Tavares who turned his marker outside of the area to make space for a shot which was on the edge of the 18 yard box and maybe 8 yards from the goal line. He has two yellow shirts to his right which prevented him from crossing to try pick out a team mate so instead he basically wellies it and it flew into the bottom left hand corner for 2-0. Should Ignacio de Arruabarrena have done better with it? Yeah, but take nothing away from the strike.
It took Arouca all of 59 seconds after the restart to equalise from a corner near side. Barbero's flicked on header was adjudged to have crossed the line albeit a defender did attempt to head it back out only to see it hit the cross bar, down onto Trezza and back into the net. Wasn't obvious at first who it belonged to but the first shot was the one which counted. 84' Straight red to Sorrisso who tripped Esgaio. Seemed harsh to me. Clumsy more than malicious and he wasn't the last man. Still despite going down to ten Santa held on for all three points.
xG 0.72 - 1.16
Total Attempts 10 - 12
Shots on target 4 - 5
Big Chances 1 - 2
Big Chances Missed 1 - 1
Sporting CP 3/20
Draw 6/1
FC Arouca 12/1
Team News
First Half
Referee David Silva takes charge of the lions for the second time this season having previously officiated in the 3-2 win over Vitória. The lions play in their traditional green and white horizontal stripes. The lobos in their traditional yellow and blue.
1’ Push in the back by Flores on Araújo in the area. He didn't appeal in fairness and the referee immediately waved his hands to indicate no penalty
Half time
Sporting CP 2 Arouca 0
The lions back to trying to forge decent shooting opportunities rather than rack up the attempts which is always good to see especially when they come with the finishes to match at the end. All too easy for both goals in truth with both wing backs in Araújo and Fresneda claiming an assist and interestingly both from the right flank. How's that for adaptability? The Lobos best chance ironically came from the deflection off Debast when he blocked a cross. Football is a game of fine margins, last week it went in off Inácio and this week Silva was equal to it. Them’s the breaks as they say, you can't legislate for it. Key statistic is that of six attempts 3 have been Opta defined big chances.
Having seen two 2-2 draws already today I'm not going to say this game is done and dusted but I can promise you if we're about to see a third then something is going to get broken and there won't be a full time match report.
+1 You can tell why conspiracy theories exist
