The kid's very different from Betinho. His finishing is clinical, but Pedro also add's physical dimension - he's very fast, which makes him able to move to the wings when needed, and his endurance and focus is impressive: he's always pressing the opposite defence, like Slimani was. He's got 10 goals in 13 matches so far, divided by our youth team (7 goals in 6 matches - 3 of them in the UEFA Youth League) and our B team (3 goals in 7 matches, although he only played for a combined total of 184 minutes). He still need to improve his game away from the box, but he's the best striker prospect we've had in a very long time. Looking forward to see how he develops.
Podence was? What? He's still very young and he's tearing it up at Moreirense, calm down, give him some time and he'll deliver.
Betinho was great as well, and in my opinion he didn't make it only because he didn't have the guts to get over rough patches, and we made some poor choices when it came to his loans (sending him to Brentford after the pre-season is over, wth were we thinking?). I hope the same thing doesn't happen with Pedro, according to the people at Belenenses where he came from, he has a fantastic personality kind of like Slimani, and he never gives up, on and off the pitch, so I'm hoping the same thing doesn't happen to him. Rafael Leão, his teammate and partner upfront, is much more talented but doesn't have as much impact as Pedro has on the pitch and much like Betinho he has been at Sporting throughout most of his career, and at Sporting they have it easier so I think a player like Pedro isn't as likely to crack as Betinho or Leão when something bad happens, because he had a rougher footballing path so far.
He played 405 min in five games since he joined them, he didn't score any goal nor does he have any assist, but that's mostly because Moreirense is crap, only 11 goals scored so far, they have only 5 points out of the possible 24, and are second to last only ahead of Arouca.
Grande Rui! Our legend is on the 30-man shortlist for the Ballon D'or, after winning Best GK award at Euro 2016. When was the last time a Primeira Liga player was nominated?
He's had a great year professionally. And considering all the flack he usually receives, this has gotta feel good for him.
When asked today about playing Chico Geraldes in Adrien's place, JJ said that Chico doesn't have the physical characteristics to play a #8 role - he says he sees him playing more like Joao Mario did, a creative player out wide who also supports the strikers. I agree with JJ on this one - maybe if we played a 4-3-3 he could be more central, but in a 4-4-2 I 'd love to see him play like Joao Mario did. He also gave a pretty good explanation in which during the 90 minutes, 85+ minutes of the match is spent without the ball at your feet, emphasizing the importance (especially in midfield) to how tactical know-ho and good positioning - technique is only good when you have the ball, which is only about 5% of the match.
Two stunners. Good god, can't believe we loaned this dude. JJ killing young Portuguese careers for SCP. Dudes smoking crack if he thinks the options we have now are better than Iuri.
Our U-17 squad has been tearing it up. Bernardo Sousa (looking all grown up compared to the little kid we had seen here) with a beautiful assist on the first goal, and Diogo Brás scoring another hattrick (he scored four goals against Belenenses last month, the kid's a goal scoring machine). Very solid generation.
Our U19s win the league! They drew 1-1 against Porto's U19s to win their first title since 2011/12. Curiously the last time we won, our U19s included Bruma, Joao Mario, Iuri Medeiros, Tiago Ilori, etc... Some of the stand-outs this year have been Pedro Marques (striker), Bruno Paz (defender/midfielder), Conté (left back who is also on the National Team) as well as younger players who have stood out like Daniel Bragança (midfielder with above average vision and creativity), Miguel Luis and Rafael Leão. Hopefully these kids now get a chance on the B team (as it should be used in my opinion).
Great news, great team. What about the rest of SCP youth teams? How many of them won the national championship this season?
Official: Joao Palhinha renews his contract until 2023 with a 60M euro release clause. --- A Sporting Clube de Portugal - Futebol, SAD informa que chegou a acordo com o atleta João Palhinha para a renovação do contrato, ficando com duração até 2023 e uma cláusula de rescisão no valor de 60 milhões de euros. A Sporting SAD deseja as maiores felicidades profissionais e pessoais a João Palhinha.
Sporting apparently to close out the B team and create a U23 team in the new proposed U23 competition proposed by the FPF a few days ago.
This year they're doing crap. But we also filled the B team with questionable players from overseas. At one point B team was hugely beneficial for Gelson, Joao Mario etc.. I'm hoping the U23 league that FPF is proposing helps grow player development - the only way I see it benefitting is if you force the majority of the squad to be home-grown talent (doesn't have to be Portuguese but should be home-grown). Instead of this nonsense of buying questionable players from Brazil's Serie B.
JJ had a lot of positive things to say about Matheus Pereira, on loan at Chaves (who won't play against us tomorrow). Says these months on loan have made him a better player and is definitely a future Sporting player. We have a lot of good players on loan - I'm hopeful we can re-integrate them and only go to the transfer market to buy a quality forward and maybe another winger (and possible replacements to William or Gelson).
Is this confirmed to be happening? And when does it start? Hopefully the U23 league is competitive. Looks like our B team will be relegated anyways lol
Probably one of the reasons why its happening. Porto and Guimaraes apparently willing to abandon their B teams and joins the U23 league. Our B team started off well and helped to launch good players, but recently we've been stuffing the B team with players with questionable talent instead of using it as a stepping stone