Best Sporting team ever

This will be a bit difficult as so many great players have come through...by the way you left Figo off your list...He played 6 yrs at Sporting still his longest stint on any team...next year will be his 6th at Real...


I will post my team later today...but it will include Jordao
Figo...Damas...Travassos...Yazalde...

 

I can only speak for the last 20/25 years. In that time span the Sporting 11, for me would be :

1-Meszaros
2-Nelson
3-Rui Jorge
4-Luisinho
5-Andre Cruz
6-Douglas
7-Figo
8-Cherbakov
9-Jordão
10-Balakov
11-Futre

1-Schmeichel . was for me the main reason we were champions after 18 years. He was good more because of his leadership skills and his winning mentality than of his goalkeeping skills,.I think just his presence put fear in the attackers and his own defenders were afraid to screw up or they would be heavily reprimanded. Damas would be a close 2nd place, but he was a little inconsistent, fabulous saves followed by dreadful blunders.Still he was fantastic and had , maybe , the best reflexes af any goalkeeper I´ve seen.Not good on crosses as this seems to be a curse for Sporting goalkeepers.Meszaros(not sure about the spelling) also deserves a mention.Better goalkeeper than Damas and also very excentric.Actually now that I think about it , he might have been the best Sporting keeper I ever saw.But I was a small little boy so I don´t remember that much.

2-Really nobody outstanding that I can remember off my mind. The ones I remember reasonably fondly include João Luis a brazilian who played for a couple of years in the 80´s was pretty solid and Nelson who had a solid career, was sold to Aston Villa I think, returned to play with Porto, but his career declined since leaving Sporting. Retired pretty young .Solid all around player and citizen.


3-Another tough position, left back. Rui Jorge was important in our two latest title runs. I remember Paulo Torres, World youth champion with Figo and co, he had a cannon of a left foot but his career was a bit dissapointing.Fernando Mendes was a wild one but was never that good. Really nobody world class.

4-Luisinho, the classiest player I´ve ever seen. He was already a veteran when he came to Sporting, he was small and slow, yet nobody could go by him , he was always in the perfect position , almost never commited a foul and could play a bit with the ball in his feet. Wonderful brazilian central defender.

5-Andre Cruz, another brazilian and another very important player in Sporting´s 99/2000 championship season.Very calm and experienced and of course the best free kick taker Sporting have ever had. Fantastic left foot.

Other Central defenders that deserve a mention include : Naybet, Marco Aurélio and Valckx. Interesting that none are portuguese.Venancio (solid player who seeemed to melt down in important games) and maybe even Beto are among the best portuguese central defenders who played for Sporting in recent years.

6- Douglas was a hard working, technically skilled defensive midfielder.Seemed to be everywhere in the park.Paulo Sousa was an intelligent and cultured midfielder ,always seemed to make the important tackles.Later won two champion league medals with Juve and Dortmund in consecutive years if I´m not mistaken. Oceano and Vidigal were two incredible workhorses who always gave 110% but technically were very limited, I always enjoyed their efforts.

7- Figo, was a very good player with Sporting , but nobody could imagine the career he would have.A funny story : when Bobby Robson was Sporting´s coach and Figo and Peixe were starting the breakthrough the senior side , my brother went to an event which Robson attended. He asked him about these two youngsters and Sir Bobby said Peixe would be a World Star and Figo was too fragile and could have problems. Well ,we all know what happened. Figo worked his butt off and became a star, Peixe was too lazy and fell into mediocrity.The moral of the story is that talent alone will get you nowhere .Young players should always look at these two examples to inspire them to work as hard as they can throughout their careers.

8- Cherbakov , fom the same generation as Figo, Peixe and co. Played for just a year or so, but before he could fulfill his potential had a tragic car accident that left him paralyzed.Was a very strong player that attacked and defended equally well. Had good technique and a good shot. A perfect central midfielder.Reminds me of a stronger Frank Lampard and could´ve been a great player.Robson said he had the most potential of that Sporting generation.Jaime Pacheco and Sousa are two other players that I considered. Pacheco was a coach on the field, he was a definite leader and wonderfull overall player who worked very hard. Sousa was a solid midfielder who had a very good shot.Both came from Porto.

9- Jordão, my idol growing up.Very elegant striker , intellegent and wonderfull header of the ball.Scored lots of goals and made it look easy.I remember one of my saddest football memories was a game between Portugal and Sweden, a world cup qualifier, I think, in Alvalade. Portugal were trailing 1-0 and were awarded a penalty kick.Jordão, whom I thought was infallible, took the penalty and missed. Portugal lost 3-1 and my Jordão myth started to fade.Sporting have had other very good strikers like Jardel or Manuel Fernandes( a club symbol ) but Jordão will always be my favourite.

10- Balakov, best player I ever saw with a Sporting shirt. Perfect creative midfielder with an incredible left foot.Worked very hard, had wonderful vision, excellent passer of the ball and another spectacular shooter of the ball.Also was deadly from set plays.My second true idol.Totally overshadowed Figo and Co. and had a very underated career which was finally reasonably recognised in the 94 World Cup.I bet Stuttgart fans probably have a similar opinion of him.Thats were he ended his career and I think he still works with the club.Very profissional and humble.Overshadowed by Stoichcov in the Bulgarian National team but was every bit as good, if not better.

11 - Futre , biggest managerial blunder by the Sporting Board ever.Left when he was 18 or 19 because the board didn´t offer him a good contract, they felt Litos who was breaking through at the same time was a better player.Went on to star at Porto and Atl.Madrid.The most talented player the Sporting academy have ever developed, better than Figo.Faboulous left foot , could dribble the entire oppossing team.One of the best plays I have ever seen was a play against Bayern Munich in the European Cup final where he just skipped past half Bayern´s team, a play comparable to Maradona´s in the 86 World Cup agaiinst England, except it didn´t finish as a goal. Didn´t have the career he should, because he spent his golden years at Atl.Madrid which wasn´t too glamarous and the Portuguese Natoinal Team was pretty weak in those years, so he couldn´t showcase his talent. Still in his 20´s started to get nagging knee injuries which cut his career short.I think he is the 2nd best portuguese player of all time.after Eusebio, he simply couldnt have a career that matched his talent.

I probably left lots of good players off my list, but my memory isn´´t the best in the World and this post is already long enough.

 

Excellent first post, and welcome aboard...

You brought back alot of memories, particularly about Jordao who along with Carlos Xavier and Pedro Barbosa are still my favorite "Portuguese" Sporting players...

Balakov was great...and no one knew about him until he played in the US during WC94...

 

Thanks, I´m glad to be here. It´s difficult to compare players I saw when I was a kid to players today because I was in awe of them .They were my Heroes and I couldn´t see anything wrong with them. So maybe I was too generous with my assesment of those older players, like Jordão, but thats the way I remember him and I really idolized him.I remember a game in Estoril where everyone invaded the pitch after the game , and I touched Jordão and it was dream experience for me at the time.Good old days.I think we were lucky, nowadays players change teams so quickly that it must be tough to have an Idol in the team you support. I digress...

Back to the subject of this thread, this eleven I chose could, I believe challenge for Champions League if we had a decent enough coach.Maybe the fullbacks could be improved but a front four of Figo on the right, Futre on the left, Balakov in the middle and Jordão as a striker,all in their prime , would be as good as an attacking force ever assembled by any single team.It would definitely be fun to watch.

 

you left out C. Ronaldo =(

 

I think both Figo and Futre at their best would be much better wingers than C Ronaldo so far. Maybe in 4 or 5 years i´ll change my opinion.