PBP: Champions League - Matchday 2 | Sporting CP v FC Barcelona | 27 September 2017 [R]

Probably one of the most important games of the season.

 

The importance of the opening goal cannot be overstated.

 

Sporting is the likely 3rd placed team in our group, I think both Barca and Juve will win at home against them. But I don't think Sporting will drop all 12 points against Barca and Juve, most likely they'll get a point (or three) at home against one (or even both) of them. Point is, if we can win this away fixture, I think we are well set up to win the group (even assuming we lose in Turin to Juventus). All of which is to say that this is a crucial game and scoring first will be vital.

Lineup guess (all caps were rested all or most of last game):
MAtS
SEMEDO - PIQUE - Umtiti - Alba
Raki -BUSI - Ini
DEULOFEU - Messi - Suarez

Deulofeu is the biggest guess, could be Roberto, Vidal, Denis; could also be a fourth midfielder like Paulinho in a 4-4-2. But I think Deulofeu starts and is subbed off for a 4th mid later in the game.

 

He is actually better than even Messi when it comes to free kicks , he has the power and accuracy but unfortunately they rarely gave him the chance to take them

 

Bruno Fernandes has been great with that of late.

I am surprised some of you actually think this will be a hard game.

I am a Sporting fan, and I do watch Barcelona games on occasion. The truth is although Sporting is generally a good team and has maybe their best squad in several years, BUT these teams are not in the same class and you could easily win this game 0-3, 0-4, or more. You are one of the 3 or 4 teams who actually has a shot at this trophy and the rest are mostly cannon fodder, such is the state of European football at this time.

Sporting doesn't have a Defence to cope with Messi or Suarez and its that simple. Our coach also likes to invent lineups in these types of games, and has never been good at CL even when he was coaching Benfica previously.

IMO the most likely result I foresee is Sporting 1-3 Barcelona. Sporting is good going forward and has a good counter attack, but our defence will collapse eventually and wont contain Barcelona's star players and attacking ability.

William Carvalho will need to have a big game here in the holding midfield role, which he usually does in important games (whenever Sporting plays a derby/classic, CL, or for Portugal in the Euro 16) also I can see Bruno Fernandes shining in this game as your team isn't very physical and he should find some space on the counter to thread passes to the wings or shoot dangerously from distance.

I hope Sporting wins but truth is it is a very unlikely scenario.

 

Thanks for the insights on your team. I did just check the odds and it looks like you guys are 15/2 to win, 19/4 to draw, and Barca is 21/50 to win; so we should prevail per the bookies.

But I just don't know that you drop all 12 points to Barca and Juve, so I was making the point that we want to be the team that gets 6 points from you as that puts pressure on Juve and may decide the group regardless of whether we lose in Turin. (I am assuming both Juve and Barca do get all 12 (6 each) playing Olympiakos).

 

We have Alena and instead Gomes gets picked ... not in a million years he would be able to do this

 

Seemed like a good opportunity to have Aleñá on the bench at least. Rakitic not exactly setting the world on fire of late.

 

Hey guys, hoping for a great match above all. Cheers!

Barça are favourite of course but we did give RM and Dortmund a good game before losing by a single goal in all the games. If you want to win Busquets will need to shut down Bruno Fernandes who has been the star this season.

 

Messi set to tie Captain with an appearance v. Sporting which we all expect (and demand).

Alena is great, but let's not rush things, I like the weird current plan where he regularly trains with the first team but plays critical minutes for Barca B against solid opponents. Sitting on the bench in Lisbon does nothing for his development. Gomes on the other hand has pretty much admitted he doesn't fit in at Barca, the trick is to get as much of his fat transfer fee back as we can. When he signed we were told/reassured he was young and had a super agent, so we wouldn't lose money. Now we sit with Gomes and Paco and wait for their youth and super agent to translate into money back to us. . . . . . .

 

Apparently MHD is Dembele's favorite
band so here's their Champion's League song to get us hyped:

 

Barça XI: Ter Stegen, Semedo, Piqué, Rakitic, Sergio, Iniesta, Suárez, Messi, Jordi Alba, S. Roberto and Umtiti

dafaq ... why the hell is roberto starting ?!?!? Vidal or Denis are the ones who should play along side messi and suarez , please don't tell me it's because he wants to keep roberto happy and shit

or maybe he is playing iniesta on the left wing like waay before but he is too slow for that now , ugh let's hope we don't ******** up because VV want to try new shit like lucho loved to do

 

I like the new jerseys, not a bad look at all.

And I think Roberto looks good on the pitch in a variety of positions.

 

6 offsides and counting for the two clubs