Ruben Amorim not only refused to speak English, teasing a wonderful hissy fit out of reporter Gary Cotterill, but also hedged his bets ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League tie with Manchester City.
“If the result is very negative,” the Old Trafford-bound head coach warned. “Expectations will drop and I don’t think that’s a bad starting point when you begin at Manchester United.”
The result, as it transpired, was rather positive. After a shaky start, Sporting romped to a 4-1 victory over Pep Guardiola’s English champions, scoring two goals in the first four minutes after Amorim’s half-time team talk.
“I’m fully aware that I’m going to be judged as a manager on this game, and only on this game,” Amorim sighed pre-game. That inevitability was framed as a negative by the studious head coach, casting aside four-and-a-half years of success for Sporting, but his side’s display in Tuesday’s set of 90 minutes certainly contained plenty of positives.
Most of Sporting’s tangible threat in midweek came through forward thrusts – or rather, their forward’s thrust. The hosts were primed to spring up the pitch at each turnover, invariably funnelling almost every attack through the team’s in-demand striker, Viktor Gyokeres.
The burly Swede barrelled through City’s precarious offside trap inside the opening seven minutes only to tamely dink his effort into Ederson’s gloves. When a more difficult opportunity presented itself half an hour later, Gyokeres made no mistake.
City have become increasingly vulnerable to counter-attacks this season – particularly in the absence of the team’s central totem, Rodri. Guardiola’s side only conceded an average of 0.6 shots from fast breaks last term – yet that figure has almost trebled this season. Bournemouth exposed these gaping wounds in a deserved win last weekend and Amorim clearly – and sensibly – pointed his human wrecking ball at the same avenue of weakness.
It also helped that one of Europe’s most prolific players was hurtling into the channel patrolled by poor Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, a 19-year-old centre-back making the first senior start of his career.
The Portuguese champions didn’t only target the teenager, spearing forward into the spaces vacated on both sides of an increasingly porous defence to inflict City’s heaviest defeat since a 5-2 reverse against Leicester City in September 2020.
THE SCENES!
Max Araújo fires Sporting ahead just moments after the second half kicked off
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The game wasn’t five minutes old when Hidemasa Morita was mugged on the edge of his own penalty box, gifting Foden the chance to fire City in front. It would not be the last cheap turnover offered up by a home side that endured an uncharacteristically skittish start in front of their own fans.
Amorim cannot be blamed for the nervy passing of his players, but he should be credited for sticking with this approach. It was the considered and composed string of passes which lured City forward from the second half restart, purposefully pinging the ball down the left flank with an up-and-back sequence which has become a signature for Sporting under Amorim.
Pedro Goncalves left Mateo Kovacic in a spin and slipped the advancing left wing-back, Maximiliano Araujo, into the box to finish off a dizzying blur of passes 20 seconds after the restart. City’s first touch of the second half was when Ederson picked the ball out of his net.
The resolve of the Portuguese boss may be more thoroughly tested in Manchester. Erik ten Hag ditched building up from the back two games into his United tenure, indelibly scarred by that 4-0 thrashing at Brentford back in August 2022.
When speaking to a Bayern Munich fan club while he was manager of the Bavarian giants, Guardiola stressed how difficult it was to break down a 5-4-1 formation. “That’s not easy. It doesn’t matter what happened 75 years ago or in the next 50 years. If the opposition team has their players like that, it is never easy.”
That system is easier to navigate when there is space between the lines of five and four. City were not short of flitting left-footers looking to receive the ball in this dangerous corridor of opportunity on Tuesday night, with Bernardo Silva, Foden and Savinho all lurking with intent.
City were suffocatingly on top in the first half, teasing open the loose stitching of Sporting’s oddly spacious shape. The visitors took 11 shots to Sporting’s three in an opening 45 minutes which Guardiola rightly hailed as “fantastic” and still finished the game with twice as many efforts as their hosts.
Sporting did tighten up after the break – another consequence of what must have been a rousing half-time sermon from Amorim – but Bernardo still found space to exchange passes with Rico Lewis and win a penalty for City. On a night when Sporting’s number nine was remorselessly ruthless, City’s Erling Haaland proved to be unusually wasteful; the missed penalty was his fifth and final squandered chance.
Amorim was wary of defeat ahead of Tuesday’s contest but perhaps even more worried about a potential victory. A win for Sporting CP, he warned, would lead to the unwanted tagline of “the new Alex Ferguson”. Well, the original Ferguson faced Guardiola twice in the Champions League and lost on both occasions, Amorim will always be able to point to this famous victory.
