Portugal’s Second UEFA Cup Team Is Being Prepared

By: Greg | November 8th, 2007

jlpb What a load of poo. Sporting aren’t going to make the knockout stages of the tournament and undeservedly so. While I understand that they aren’t mathematically eliminated, I don’t know how much they’re possibly going to take away from Old Trafford when they face half of their old teammates in three weeks time. Actually, one may drum up the theory that Sporting have a chance to take all three points away from Old Trafford. If the individual players treat the game as what it really is (a scouting session for ManU to see which players to poach for next year) then maybe Sporting will be lifted as a whole and win. Probably not. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Miguel Veloso walk on to the pitch in green and white and come out at half time wearing red. Imagine that. João Moutinho fires in two goals in the first half, which leads to the following halftime interview with Sir Alex:

Reporter: “You’re down two nil to the Portuguese side, Sir Alex, what can you do tactically in the second half to thwart the Sporting attack?”
Sir Alex: “We were thinking about just buying that little fella Moutinho but…”
Reporter: “I’m not asking about your winter transfer plans, I’m asking about any potential change in tactics.”
Sir Alex: “Well as I was saying before you cut me off… We were planning on buying João Moutinho at half time, but we spoke to the Glazers and we’ve decided to buy the entire team and assimilate them into our evil Borg ship.”
Reporter: “So, tactically speaking, you’re just simply going to buy the whole team? Who will you play against?”
Sir Alex: “Resistance is futile!” ::Assimilates reporter::

I’d pay to see that one. But enough looking into the future, let’s look behind us and see what happens when you outplay another team for almost a full 90 minutes…

Sporting 2 – 2 Roma – Somebody please ship Paulo Bento and company some frigging rabbit feet, horseshoes, and four-leaf clovers. They can’t buy a break. I’d say that this is a bunch of good experience building match play but that would probably only really matter to some big club who will eventually come along and buy the experience away from the Lisbonians (that’s right, I just invented it… ‘lisbonians’). Chris wrote up an accurate review of the game over on his little blog so go there and read his statistics, reviews, and other fantastic items on the game. Besides, he gets paid a whole lot more than I do so the content better be out of sight (since mine is just barely in sight).

I hope Sporting were watching the Roma players after the final whistle. They were grab-assing and practically making out at the fact that they had just (I don’t want to say “earned a draw” since it wasn’t exactly earned…) been gifted (ahh, that’s better) a draw. The Lisbonians can take solace in the fact that a team that everyone thinks should have throttled Sporting was practically having celebratory intercourse over the result. However, I think a few of the players were exchanging shirts and trying on the opponents colors a little too seriously…

There’s plenty of football to be played. I won’t give up hope on Sporting just yet (like I have with Benfica). I hope Miguel Veloso and a few other transfer targets step up their game against their future employer and steal away the points out from under Cristiano’s cute little flip up front hair thing.

Until tomorrow, I implore you to keep it oh so real. Display for all the kisses which you are giving around. And remember to drink more Ovaltine.