With half a week of work, Sporting managed to catch Benfica by surprise. Who knows, maybe Rui can lose his first name?…
I can’t hear about Borges without thinking about Jorge Luís, the brilliant Argentinean, writer, poet, essayist — Rui, Sporting’s new coach, forgive me. Maybe one day he will be the one I think of if we hear about a Borges. Coaches are more or less like writers, as they gain fame they lose their first names, they are left with just their nicknames — from Camões to Mourinho, from Guardiola to Cervantes…
Borges, the Argentine, created fantastic worlds, full of metaphysical labyrinths, both in poetry and prose. Rui Borges, João Pereira’s successor, also managed to create a fantastic maze that caught Bruno Lage by surprise, in yesterday’s classic, with half a week of work.
The starting eleven left the doubt as to how Sporting would perform — with four defenders, as happened, or with three defenders and Matheus Reis on the left wing. The option to play Eduardo Quaresma at right-back, but more than that the way the team was distributed on the field, left Benfica lost.
We can scalp the goal that decided the derby in detail, from Otamendi’s bad pass that led to the throw-in to the fact that Benfica conceded a goal from a throw-in…, from Tomás Araújo’s poor approach to Gyokeres’ escape through the left to the fact that Geny Catamo appeared alone in the area, with Álvaro Carreras (well, in my opinion) coming to close in the middle but none of the Eagles’ midfielders compensating. But that would be getting away from the essentials: Sporting scored in that play by chance (and because of other people’s mistakes), but by chance they didn’t score in many others. What remains, for me, is the ball shower that Benfica gave in those first 45 minutes, managing to extend the red and black team across the entire field and taking advantage of the gaps that opened up between the visiting lines — especially by Trincão, who placed between the Eagles’ defenders and midfielders, and Hjulmand, who always found space in front of the red and black midfielders.
Lage, despite having already experienced something similar against Borges, Rui, a few weeks ago, when Benfica saw themselves and wanted to beat Vitória de Guimarães in Luz, not only was he not prepared for that Sporting, but he took forever to react . Benfica improved in the second half, yes, but they were never as good as Sporting were in the first.
There are derbies like this, with a clear, unequivocal winner. But rarely with just three days of work…
