How Sporting Lisbon replaced Bruno Fernandes and became champions again

After 19 years of waiting, Sporting Lisbon are champions again. Which still has a lot to do with four words, but also a lot with coach Ruben Amorim (36).

Sporting – then and now: Cristiano Ronaldo, Ruben Amorim and Pedro Goncalves (from left).

imago images (3)

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Sporting’s last championship was so long ago that a certain Cristiano Ronaldo was still playing in the U16. And in the U 17, the U 18, the second and the first team of the Leoes. All in one season.

At Sportings Academy, which was the first in Portugal to open in 2002, “we use it as a model in every room. In the sports halls, the classrooms and the changing rooms,” goalkeeping coach Miguel Miranda told the Guardian in 2018. “He sacrificed himself to get where he is today.”

Or the 2016 European Championship final, where Portugal won its first major title. In the last instance without the injured CR7, but apart from the captain, there were seven other players in the Portuguese starting line-up who had once been trained at Sporting.

No limit for wingers

“Commitment”, “Dedication”, “Passion” and “Honor” are the four words that everyone passes by when entering and exiting the Sporting Academy. However, there could be a fifth word on this wall: “Winger”. Because that’s what they produce here.

“The coaches give the key players a limited number of contacts. The wingers have unlimited contacts because they are supposed to create opportunities,” explains Miranda, who has seen many big names here before they became big names. Luis Figo, Ricardo Quaresma, Nani and of course Cristiano Ronaldo. Classic winger from the Sporting School.

In 2002 the Leoes had a striker who knew how to use all the flanks: Mario Jardel scored an unbelievable 42 times in 30 league games. Sporting’s showpiece is still the defensive 19 years later. Trained by ex-international Ruben Amorim, who is only nine days older than Cristiano Ronaldo, they are still unbeaten in the league and conceded just 15 goals in 32 games. It’s the perfect balance.

Amorim changes: Wing game 2.0

Because the big names – who are just about to become such – continue to play at the front. So where Amorim Sportings has reinvented traditional wing play. With him came the 3-4-2-1 in March 2020 – and the game on the outside since then more from the depths.

Presented, for example, by Nuno Mendes (18), who cranks it up on the left side and is already playing for the Portuguese national team. Across the street, Pedro Porro (21) plows along the outside lane, while Tiago Tomas (18) lurks in the center of the storm, after whom the international top clubs are also said to be after.

So is it just because of the system now that the biggest name in recent years left Sporting in the preseason? Bruno Fernandes now enraptures Manchester United. But on the one hand, the “newly inspired” team of the Leoes continues to flourish because it is allowed to flourish.

They just let you do it – and that’s how you learn.

Sporting youth player Eric Dier

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“They were never angry when you played a bad pass, but only when you behaved disrespectfully,” remembers England international Eric Dier, who played for Sporting for nine years alone when he was young. “In England the coaches coach almost the entire game, in Portugal they just let you do it – and that’s how you learn.”

A Portuguese that the Wolves didn’t want

On the other hand, the green-whites have long since found their new Bruno Fernandes. Like his predecessor, Pedro “Pote” Goncalves (22), eliminated by Wolverhampton Wanderers, scores most of his team’s goals from central attacking midfield.

Championship or championship – realistically, Goncalves is likely to be the next big export of the Leoes. Even if, like Fernandes, he doesn’t originally come from her academy at all. Because then he would have become a winger.

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