- Erling Haaland threatened with imprisonment, and a publicity stunt
- Sporting v Arsenal: concerns that the new format is not working as it should
By Our man with a glass of port
There is no getting away from the fact that in the Champions League Sporting have been doing rather well – almost as well as they have been doing in the much easier Portugues League. They have beaten Lille 2-0 (watch highlights) and then had a 1-1 away draw with PSG (highlights are here).
After that it was Sturm Graz 0 Sporting CP 2 and once again there are highlights and then finally the real highlight from our point of view Sporting CP 4 Manchester City 1 (highlights) which means that it is possible that CP Sporting might make the mistake of thinking that Arsenal are as dopey as ManC are at the moment.
The one thing that could make life a little less worrying in terms of this game is that the Sporting manager Ruben Amorim has left the club. He’s decided to go down a league or two and has taken charge of Manchester United. He’s probably beating himself up having just watched Ipswich Town 1 Manchester United 1.
Sporting has played one game since then and it turned out to be another win, making it nine in a row. They beat Amarante 6-0 in the Portuguese Cup.
Now that might sound a trifle worrying, but then we should remember perhaps that Amarante FC currently plays in the Campeonato de Portugal which is the fourth tier of Portuguese football although I think one or two newspapers have got it a bit confused and think it is the third division. They play their home matches at the Municipal de Amarante in Amarante which was built just over a quarter of a century ago, so is nice and modern. Trouble is, it only holds 5,000 fans.
But then everyone makes their own bed and jumps up and down on it. Especially if he reads the papers. The Guardian’s headline was “Manchester United’s joyless incoherence frees Amorim from any illusions.” Did he have illusions? Didn’t he watch Match of the Day? We are not told.
Of course the Portuguese League really only has three teams that go chasing the title – Sporting (whom Arsenal are playing and which my keyboard endlessly seeks to call Sprouting), Porto and Benfica. Of those two, Sporting has just played Porto once, and beat them 2-0 at home.
The last time any club other than one of the big three won the league in Portugal was 2000/01 when Boavista managed that achievement. And the time before that was… well, no there wasn’t one. The League started in 1934/5 and since then as far as I can see Boavista is the only team to have won the league other than the big three.
So while we might feel it is a trifle tedious that ManC has won the league six times in the last seven seasons, the fact is that in Portugal that would be seen as a minor run. Since the introduction of the Campeonato Nacional da Primeira Divisãoin 1938/9 (and yes that really was the date they started, and they carried right on through the second world war), Sporting have won the league 20 times, which might sound a lot but is nothing compared with Porto on 30 and Benfica on 38.
Beyond that Belenenses won it once in 1946 and Boavista once in 2001. Otherwise, it is a three-club show. And that really is the undoing of clubs in Portugal since they endlessly see themselves as the underdogs when playing bigger clubs from elsewhere and put up a 12 man defence. OK maybe 11, but those referees can certainly get in the way.
Arsenal have played Sporting six times, winning two, drawing three and losing one. That single defeat was in fact in the last match between the two on 16 March 2023 when the game went to penalties and Gabriel Martinelli missed his.
So we could re-cast this and say that in fact Sporting have never beaten Arsenal in real-time matches. But then against that we might also have to admit that Arsenal haven’t actually won any of the last three games between the two, (two being draws and that last one being won on penalties by the opposition). We have to go right back to 1969 for a jolly decent win – 3-0 in the Fairs Cup on 26 November 1969.
And isn’t that rather a jolly coincidence, in that if my diary is correct, tomorrow might just be the 55th anniversary of that rather fine win.
