2008 Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira Match Report: Sporting 2 – 0 Tripe Eaters

By: Greg | August 18th, 2008

In the first silverware worthy match of the Season, Sporting sneaked two past Porto keeper Helton en route to a relatively mundane 2-0 victory. Here’s the team that took the field for kick off:

Yannick Djaló – Derlei
Izmailov – João Moutinho – Romagnoli – Rochemback
Abel – Polga – Tonel – Caneira
Rui Patrício

First Half Analysis / Notes
For spells, this game was almost unbearable to watch. Both clubs looked very much unprepared to start the season this coming weekend and played somewhat disjointed football as a result. My wife’s away visiting her family and I was actually HAPPY to take a phone call from her in the middle of the first half so as not to be subjected to the poopish football these two teams were putting forth. As the first half came to a close, I decided to keep my friend company outside as he smoked a cigarette only to hear my Porto supporting buddy start yelling curses from upstairs meaning something good must have happened. That something good was Yannick Djaló scrambling together a goal right before half time to put Sporting ahead 1-0 in a match where the two teams looked like they were trying to “out suck” each other.

Intermission changes / Thoughts
I wish I would have bought hard alcohol rather than beer and pizza to watch the match because I ended up getting filled up on the beer and pizza instead of getting drunk and happy which I would have gotten had I purchased a nice fifth of Jack Daniel’s. Being drunk or on some form of mind altering substance would have made the first half more bearable. If this was your first foray into Portuguese football, please do your best to convince yourself that what you saw was only a bad dream and not really a reflection of the two clubs that automatically qualified for the Champions League group stages this year.

Second Half Analysis / Notes
Ugh… More drab football. Porto are disjointed, not communicating, and look like they’ll finish fifth this year. Without the presence of Ricky Quaresma the attack looked toothless and futile. Lisandro had one or two mediocre chances on the night. Djaló’s second goal was an exploitation of the shitty Porto back line who miscommunicated on a pass across the front of the goal which Yannick got a toe to and poked past Helton for his second. Substitute “Hulk” (who actually has this name on the back of his jersey) put a few shots from just outside the area on net but they were never troubling keeper Rui Patrício. Porto earned a penalty in the waning moments but Lucho Gonzalez did his best Nicolas Anelka in the Champions League final impersonation and practically kicked the ball right at Patrício. Porto seem to have caught the Manchester United players’ disease where if a match isn’t going their way they begin crying out for every ticky tack foul they can possibly hope for. Things got testy towards the end of the match with a few Porto players going after substitute Miguel Veloso probably out of jealousy of his awesome mohawk mullet combination hair cut.

Individual Player Rankings:
Goalkeeper:
Rui Patrício: 8.5 – He looked a little nervous at the outset but asserted himself extremely well a few times on crosses and handled the not-so incredible Hulk’s hard strikes on goal very well. He committed himself extremely early on the Lucho penalty save but that didn’t matter as Lucho basically passed the ball in the direction Rui was diving anyway.

Defenders / Wingbacks / Attacking Centerbacks:
Abel: 6.5 – The entire defense, with the exception of Caneira were hard to judge based on the fact that Porto’s offense was almost entirely nonexistent. They all get the same rating due to the fact that I couldn’t tell what was the real determining factor in the clean sheet: Porto’s flaccid attack or Sporting’s decent defending.

Polga: 6.5 – See above.

Tonel: 6.5 - See above.

Caneira: 7.5 - A solid debut. La Liga experience showed and he looked as though he had been playing with the other defenders for more than a preseason.

Midfielders
Izmailov: 7 – Was more evident in the attack than Moutinho. Didn’t have the same match that he had last year when he scored the winner, but a decent effort nonetheless.

João Moutinho: 5.25 – I had to check the field for him more than once to make sure he was out there. He played a pseudo holding midfielder / no man’s land type of position that really didn’t allow him to get much into the flow of the match. He has a habit of being a ghost for long periods of time during contests which makes me a little nervous about some in the media tapping him to take over Deco’s role in the future for the National Team.

Romagnoli: 6 – Usually shows up big for these matches but must have been hanging out with Moutinho for spells of the game. I don’t recall seeing him involved too much but the game was so frigging mind numbing that he could have jumped through the screen and kicked me in the head and I might not have noticed.

Rochemback: 7 – He didn’t have the “Key Player” type of match that I thought he would but he certainly hit the Triperos with intelligent, hard fouls and disrupted their poor excuse for an attack whenever they came forward. I don’t know how Boss Bento is going to work him into the fold with Miguel Veloso seeing as they essentially play almost the same position and Bento favors a diamond shape in the midfield.

Attack
Yannick Djaló: 8.75 – Man of the Match - Good goal poaching on his two scores. His pace had no equal and Porto are lucky Sporting’s service forward wasn’t better. He’ll make a great partner for Liedson when the Brazilian returns.

Derlei: 6 – Meh. Spends an awful lot of time on his ass.

Substitutes:
Miguel Veloso (for Romagnoli 67′) - 6 - He’s still clearly not 100% even though he claims to be. Came on as a second defensive midfielder but Sporting probably won’t play a 4-2-2-2 type of formation unless they’re ahead late (as they were here). The ‘6′ rating is based on his hair cut which is so ridiculously awesome.

Hélder Postiga (for Derlei 82′) - Incomplete – Not enough time on the pitch to get into the match and evaluate him at all.

Bruno Pereirinha (for Yannick Djaló 91′) – Incomplete – Definitely not enough time on the pitch to evaluate. Came on basically so Djaló could get his fair share of the applause.

Conclusion:
This is essentially a preseason match and both teams were not entirely at full strength. That said, Quaresma looks to be an extremely important aspect of the Porto offense which I can’t stress enough looks ANEMIC without the Cigano patrolling the wings. Sporting won this match last year and then watched Porto smoke the world en route to winning the league very decisively. I liked the swagger and smiles on the Sporting players and coaches as well as the fact that they got under Porto’s skin with effective, hard fouls and frustrating play. I don’t want to make more of this than it is, but it’s always nice to see Porto have their asses handed to them and start their baby antics. Gets me all giddy and stuff.

Força Sporting!!!!