The Sporting CP Herald
Boardroom22 May 2028
Continental nights are coming to Sporting CP
Qualification is secured, and next season the big floodlit nights are continental ones. For the players it is a stage; for the accounts it is a lifeline; for the supporters it is passports.
Squad22 May 2028
Pote is named among the best
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Sporting CP will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Boardroom22 May 2028
Sporting CP to lose Pedro Miguéis for free
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Pedro Miguéis has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad22 May 2028
Tempers go at Sporting CP
Gonçalo Inácio 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.
Squad22 May 2028
André Machado is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
The dugout22 May 2028
Rui Silva gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Rui Silva is on it.
The dugout22 May 2028
The manager makes an example of Samuel Justo
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout22 May 2028
Chuchu Ramírez knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sporting CP, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Loan watch22 May 2028
David Moreira has made Penafiel’s shirt his own
32 starts now, an average of 7.03, and the team sheet at Penafiel has stopped being a question. Exactly what everybody signed up for.
In brief
- The dugout Gabriel Silva has been promised minutes
- Loan watch The goals keep arriving from Mateo Tanlongo’s exile
- Loan watch 4 goals on loan for José Mendes