C.D. Aves 0 x 2 Sporting C.P.
Wings Lift Sporting to Successful Liga Debut
Let’s get this out of the way: this was not a pretty match. But I checked this season’s regulations and there will be no style points awarded in the Liga NOS. As JJ said after the match, Sporting did just enough to win. And the difference was made by Sporting’s wingers Gelson Martins and Marcos Acuña.
Martins wreaked the usual havoc along the right flank. And in the 23rd minute, Marcos Acuña broke out after an Aves corner and looped a beauty of a pass from the left onto the entrance of the Aves area and Gelson fought off his marker and deftly switched from right to left to fool Aves GK Facchini. Brilliance.
JJ scores high marks for bringing in Podence and Battaglia for lackluster Bruno Fernandes and Adrien midway into the second half. The two immediately pressed Sporting into another gear. Shortly thereafter, in the 75th minute, Gelson took advantage of a failed acrobatic clearance of a Battaglia cross by Gallo and poached his second.
And the defense, the source of much consternation to this author, did its job. Coates and Mathieu were a solid partnership and seemed comfortable coming forward. Coentrão is still shaking off the pre-season, but was generally solid. Of the quartet, Piccini seemed to have the most problems and today’s signing of Stefan Ristovski should begin a legitimate competition for the right side of the defense.
The 2017/18 lions are clearly still a work in progress and the flash that JJ’s teams display when at their best will come, because this team has so much talent so as to not be dormant for too long.
