Sporting 1 – 0 Braga: Way Late, Truncated Match Recap

By: Greg | September 3rd, 2008

I’m sorry that my weekend’s activities got in the way of me getting this to you sooner. As long as I’m not knee deep in whale semen and Jack Daniel’s, these will be on the first week day after the match takes place. They’ll also be a lot more thorough, as a complete run down of the match is more than two days late at this point and I’d rather go more “stream of consciousness” than rigid format. Here’s who started the match:

Sporting Starting XI

Derlei – Hélder Postiga
Izmailov – João Moutinho – Romagnoli – Rochemback
Grimi – Caneira – Tonel – Abel
Rui Patrício

I was off by one player with my prediction, as Yannick was kept in the stands due to an injury precaution. Postiga made way for Tiuí in the 50th minute, with Miguel Veloso coming on for Romagnoli in the 67th and Simon Vukcevic rounded out the subs by replacing Derlei with five minutes left.

Match Notes
The entire match was very testy from the get go. Both teams were willing to trade fouls and Braga attempted to assert themselves through hard tackles as Sporting responded in kind. After the initial pleasantries were exchanged, Sporting strung together a beautiful display of passing, including switching the field and good through balls to set up a pass to Postiga who was waiting on the six yard line to nudge the rock home with his left. The series that led to what would be the match winner in the 4th minute made Braga look like bright red practice cones for Sporting to dink and dunk around.

As the match wore on, tempers flared up a number of times and Braga defender João Pereira was sent off in the 83rd minute for a second yellow. Overall, the match featured eleven yellows (6 for Braga and 5 for Sporting) and was very hard fought throughout. Some of the tackles that were carded were plain clumsy and others were hard, bone crunchers.

I think Sporting could land themselves in serious trouble especially in the Champions League if they continue to tackle with such reckless abandon. I’m all for the hard tackles that disrupt runs forward, but some of the tackling has to be reeled in to ensure that they don’t get in serious disciplinary trouble down the line. If I had to pick one weak spot at this point it would probably be the lack of clinical tackling in the midfield.

All in all, we’re top of the table with two wins out of two matches. We survived our first big test of the season and looked pretty darn good coming out of it. Wait until we drop points at home against Rio Ave, then we can start bitching about the team. For now, it’s all gravy baby.

Força Sporting!!