Ibrahima Ba

Central Defender - Sporting CP
31 Oct 2026
Saturday
Process

Marked for Ibrahima Ba

12 Edition

The Sporting CP Herald

19 Oct 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Market

Rodrigo Zalazar has his eye on Europe

It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Sporting CP can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.

Squad

Rui Silva in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sporting CP this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Squad

Diogo Martins is a better footballer than he was

Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.

Match

Late, late show earns Sporting CP a point

Minute 93, against Nacional, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.

Player ratings

The afternoon belonged to Maximiliano Araújo

A mark of 7.64, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.

Match

Honours even between Sporting CP and Nacional

1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.

Squad

Words at Sporting CP training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kaique is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.

The dugout

The view from the dugout

“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Duarte Goncalves chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.

Boardroom

$90.0K lands at Sporting CP thanks to Flávio Gonçalves

A clause somebody insisted on years ago, in a negotiation nobody remembers, has just paid Sporting CP $90.0K. Flávio Gonçalves left a long time ago; the paperwork stayed.

In brief

Back issues
11 Edition

The Sporting CP Herald

12 Oct 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad

Rodrigo Zalazar takes the match ball home

3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.

Player ratings

Mauro Couto, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.62

A mark of 7.62 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.

Squad

Tempers go at Sporting CP

Rui Silva was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.

Squad

The step up is real for Gabriel Silva

At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.

Match

Sporting CP get the job done against Santa Clara

A 3‑1 win over Santa Clara, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.

Loan watch

William Lodmell wants to come home

“I did not go to Felgueiras to sit and watch. I want to come back to Sporting CP and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 9 matches say the rest.

The terraces

One of their own: Issa Doumbia

He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.

Squad

Ibrahima Ba signs on for more

“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ibrahima Ba and Sporting CP agree another 4 years.

Player ratings

Ninety minutes of Rodrigo Zalazar at his very best

Marked 8.28. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Sporting CP.

In brief