The force of nature continues to wreak havoc in Alvalade. The first half wasn’t even easy for the Swede, who had little space in the central corridor and near the goal, due to the good defensive work of FC Porto’s central defenders, and appeared dropped on the left flank — as he also likes. Even so, everything changed in the second half and Viktor Gyökeres made an impact again in a classic against the Dragons.
Gyökeres’s shocks give a natural order to the game through chaos (the Sporting-FC Porto report)
It was in the 69th minute that the Swede changed the game. Gyökeres received the ball on the halfway line and, contrary to normal, on the right flank, he beat Otávio Ataíde at speed, entered the area and was tackled from behind by the young centre-back. Luís Godinho awarded the penalty and it was then that Pedro Gonçalves appeared to provide an assist that does not appear in the statistics. The Portuguese international is normally the penalty taker but, in a gesture of coolness and maturity, he handed the ball to the Swede. Gyökeres took responsibility and deceived Diogo Costa, starting the Lions’ victory.
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With this goal, the forward continued to be on the winning side in games against Porto, as this was his fourth goal in a classic. In addition, Gyökeres scored in every game against FC Porto in the National Championship and scored his 50th goal for Sportingbecoming the tenth foreigner to reach this mark for the Lions, only behind Yazalde (126), Bas Dost (93), Iordanov (70), Jardel (67), Arizaga (62), Slimani (61), Balakov (60), Fernando Puglia (58) and Manoel (56).
However, Gyökeres is the sixth player who needed fewer games to reach the 50-goal mark. The Swede only needed 55 games and, in this regard, he is only beaten by Peyroteo (25), Jardel (38), Lourenço (45), Manuel Soeiro and Puglia (47). All this in just one year at the Lions. In addition to the goal, the 26-year-old made a breakthrough pass, five shots, three progressive drives and four effective dribbles.
At the end of this Saturday’s classic, Gyökeres was elected the man of the match for the Liga Portugal and, in flash-interview SportTV’s coach, considered the Lions’ victory “fair”, as his team “controlled the game and had more chances”. “It’s always important to win games, especially against a top team. It’s important to win against them [FC Porto]. We learned from the last games, we kept the clean sheet and that makes it easier to win”, analyzed the Swede, who became the seventh Sporting player to score in the first four rounds.
When asked about the 29 goals scored in the last edition of the National Championship and whether he can surpass that mark this season, Gyökeres believes he can. “The goal is to do more as a team and I also want to improve. I want to score more”. Regarding Sporting’s leadership, which, as it stands, is isolated, the forward highlighted the team’s performance at the start of the season: “We won all the games, we scored a lot of goals, we have a good rhythm and we are getting to know each other game by game.”
