Between national teams and the Champions League there is a knockout game (with Amarante, in the Portuguese Cup). Some management but without taking risks
Now, João Pereira's first official eleven as Sporting coach, after a 5-2 victory against UD Leiria, on Saturday, in a training game held at the Academy. An eleven certainly different from the one that will start on Tuesday with Arsenal, this is the one that will show the lion with the stamp of the coach who replaces Ruben Amorim. Because many Lions were in the selections, because the game is with a team from League 3 and the Champions League is coming up, the exercise of nominating the first team of the new Leo era is complicated. There will be management, but there is a game to win…
There is no doubt about the goal, the World Cup is Kovacevic's field and Franco Israel arrived late from the Uruguayan team. In the defensive trio in front of the Bosnian goalkeeper, João Pereira is likely to use the same ones he tested with UD Leiria: St. Juste, Gonçalo Inácio and Matheus Reis — Eduardo Quaresma was in the under-21s but without minutes; Zeno Debast was injured for Belgium; Ousmane Diomande traveled after having been in the service of Côte d'Ivoire.
In the line of four in midfield, the right wing will be handed over to Geovany Quenda, who played for the under-21s but was called up to Team A for the game against Croatia and saw the coach not give him even a minute for his debut. On the left, without Nuno Santos, injured for a long time, and with Maxi Araújo having arrived late from Uruguay, Fresneda is a hypothesis, as tested in Saturday's friendly and as Amorim experienced in the League Cup, with Nacional, before leave for Manchester United. In between, Bragança's creativity and the doubt as to whether Hjulmand, who played 120' for Denmark, can take his place, or if he rests — and here, because Morita was in the service of Japan with extensive travels, he could appear, by surprise, a young man like Henrique Arreiol, 19-year-old number 6 on team B.
Up front, Gyokeres is always available to keep scoring and is now looking for a record number of goals in a calendar year. But come Arsenal and then Santa Clara in the League and prudence invites rest, especially after 180 minutes for Sweden and with five (!) more goals scored. That's why Conrad Harder looks for eleven. On the right with Marcus Edwards, this season with just seven games (143'), on the left could be Trincão, who for Portugal played just six minutes against Poland.
