Another unconvincing display from Sporting at home, more dropped points, in what was Oceano Cruz’s last game (this time for real) at the Alvalade.

Sporting on Monday night hosted mid table side Academica de Coimbra. Coach Oceano Cruz once again deployed a 4-3-3 with Insua at left back, boulahrouz and Rojo at centre back, and started Arias over Cedric at right back. In midfield nothing was changed with Rinaudo being flanked by Schaars and Adrien Silva. On the wings were Pranjic and Viola and Ricky Van Wolfswinkel at striker.

Sporting started off very well, controlling the pace of the game not allowing Academica much time on the ball. Unfortunately, most of the first half involved typical wing play with high hopeful crosses into the box that Ricky was unable to reach, only two decent shots were mustered by Valentin Viola. Positive notes include the great movement by Rinaudo once again from defense to attack, he moved all over the pitch breaking up plays and tried his best to supply the forwards but to no avail. Defense looked fairly stable, with the exception of a few bad passes from Rojo and Boulahrouz (who has yet to convince me that he can be a starter for this team).

In the second half, Arias was subbed off for Gelson Fernandes (in the ’46 minute) and for a short while, Sporting played with Rinaudo and Gelson as the holding midfielders which allowed Silva and Schaars to push further up. As the half progressed Sporting hit a proverbial wall thus, in the ’58 minute, SIlva was replaced by Marat Izmailov in the hopes that his superior offensive ability could spark something. All was going in Sporting’s favour until the ’70 minute when Boulahrouz picked up a hamstring injury and was forced to leave the game, “B” team striker Betinho was brought on which really changed Sporting’s shape. Gelson dropped back to RB, Rojo at centre back, Insua at LB, Rinaudo dropped even deeper almost to centre back, which allowed Izmailov and Schaars to supply the balls to the widemen Pranjic and Viola, Ricky and Bentinho stayed up front.

Right away with less pressure on Ricky, he was able to free up some space for himself and tested the Academica keeper Ricardo in the ’76 minute. Then, Wilson Eduardo (the Sporting Loanee) was subbed on for Academica which immediately provided them with some life in attack, suddenly, Academica were much faster and came close to scoring on several occasions.

In the final ten minutes of the game, the faster Sporting attack began to press more and more, Sporting were coming closer and were finally generating some shots in the final third of the pitch. Ricky picked up a foolish yellow in the ’86 for simulation in the box. In stoppage time, Sporting had their best chances of the game, Pranjic blasted a shot from outside the box which resulted in a juicy rebound, the ball was played to Ricky who lost control to a defender, and in controversial fashion seemed to play a pass back to keeper Ricardo, the referee ignored the situation and the game was ended at a 0-0 draw.

There isn’t much else to say about this game, Sporting simply were not good enough. I had a few qualms about the player selections, in particular I didn’t like the fact that Viola started over Andre Carrillo, he is in my opinion one of the most talented on the team and needs to play in order to develop. Diego Capel was also not utilized, he could’ve proved very effective in the second half instead of Pranjic. I also feel that with the players Sporting have, perhaps a different formation could be used. Something akin to a 4-2-3-2 with Rinaudo and Schaars/Gelson has the holding midfielders, Silva, Izmailov and Capel/Pranjic as the more advanced Midfielders and Carrillo/Ricky the strikers. Too often, Ricky is left alone up front and all we try to do is cross the ball into him, teams pick up on this quickly, not to mention we make it easier for them because of our limited movement through the middle of the park. With the point, Sporting move up the 10th place in the league with a record of 1 win, 4 draws, and 2 losses.

Alright, I’m finished ranting for the night, hopefully Franky Vercauteren can turn things around next Sunday when we go up against Vitoria Setubal.