Sporting CP-Porto is a Taça da Liga semifinal and is played Tuesday at 8:45 p.m.: news, stats, likely lineups and prediction.
It may be less important than the league, but a cup is still a cup. Especially when the big three of Portuguese soccer (Sporting, Porto and Benfica) plus another team that has now joined the ranks of the big boys like Braga are competing for it. In the first of the two semifinals, which will be played in a single match to face each other will be Sporting CP and Porto, to date first and second respectively in the standings of the top Lusitanian league, the Liga de Portugal.
This will be the second confrontation of the season after the one staged last August and won 2-0 by the capital club (goals by Gyokeres and Catamo), when Ruben Amorim was still on the green-and-white bench, then moved in mid-September to Manchester United in the Premier League.
It was a farewell that Sporting had a hard time digesting at home: the team began to rack up worrying missteps, and ownership decided to relieve Joao Pereira, the coach who had been promoted from the youth ranks after saying goodbye to Amorim, a few weeks into his tenure.
Sporting is not fully recovered
For a few days now, former Vitoria Rui Borges has been at Sporting’s helm.Sporting, however, continues not to fully convince and last Friday came the second draw in the last two days, a pyrotechnic 4-4 (hat-trick, needless to say, by the usual Gyokeres) precisely against Borges’ old team, in which the Leoes avoided defeat at the last gasp.
Port, by contrast, continues its march toward first place without any particular hiccups. In their last game, the Dragoes took Boavista by storm (4-0), bringing home their third straight win and third consecutive unbeaten goal. Vitor Bruno’s men are now just one point behind leading Sporting and in the Taça da Liga they will do everything they can to sap the morale of a direct title contender, which unlike them is trudging along once Amorim departed.
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The Prediction
Porto seems to be better off than Sporting and will play its cards in Lisbon. As has happened several times in the last head-to-heads the spectacle should not be lacking at the “José Alvalade”: both will most likely score at least one goal on each side.
The probable lineups of Sporting CP-Porto
SPORTING CP (4-4-2): Israel; Quaresma, Diomande, St. Juste, Matheus Reis; Catamo, Morita, Hjulmand, Quenda; Trincao, Gyokeres.
PORT (4-2-3-1): Diogo Costa; Martim Fernandes, Perez, Otavio, Galeno; Eustaquio, Gonzalez; Franco, Mora, Pepe; Aghehowa.
POSSIBLE RESULT: 2-2
