A gift from Santa Clara put the ghosts that scare Sporting to pause

The 1-1 score by Santa Clara in the 98th minute of the game was the prologue to ghostly minutes in Alvalade. This Sporting, a team afraid of itself, hesitant, an entity without a clear form, had allowed the draw at the drop of the hat and the whole scenario, the whole stadium, the whole night, opened the door to the nightmare.

It started to rain. Midnight approached, the temperature dropped. The public remembered the recent defeat against the same opponent on the same pitch, they remembered the crisis that is still there, they were perfectly aware that this Sporting is not that Sporting.

Ghosts were around Alvalade. Penalties seemed like the final guest of the evening. Until a gift, dropped from the sky and the insistence of a Swede addicted to looking at the goal, solved the problem.

Or postponed it, because these evils cannot be resolved that way. At 113′ for Sporting-Santa Clara, Venâncio delayed the ball without looking, without seeing that Gyökeres was lurking, without remembering that Gyökeres is always lurking. The top scorer in Portuguese football rounded Neneca, celebrated for the 27th time of the season and, for a moment, stopped the storm.

It continues to rain in Alvalade. But the second victory in a row, even if unstable, uncertain, chaotic, allows us to breathe better, taking down a Santa Clara team that, once again, confirmed that it has a competitiveness, an aggressiveness and a well-worked method that is rarely seen in Portugal.

The World Cup celebration during the festive season has little to do with it when it is played on a weekday at 8:45 pm. With Sporting in a state of doubt and restlessness, Alvalade hosted the game with bare stands and a warm atmosphere, consistent with the level that the lions have presented. Things only heated up in the epilogue of the clash, when fights and antics took on the main role.

After opening minutes that remained in no one’s memory, Geovany Quenda seemed committed to personifying Sporting’s current state of mind: unusual and uninspired.

First the unusual. At 14′, the teenager had a corner from the left, marking it in a way that would certainly have been worked on. However, what, in the intentions and tactical framework, should have been a pass to Debast, turned into a gigantic delay, with the play restarting in the locals’ midfield, as far from Santa Clara’s goal as Lisbon is from Ponta Delgada.

Then the uninspired. And an uninspired one with touches of souvenir. At 16′, Catamo, in the best move of the first half, received it with class and crossed into the area, where Quenda appeared, who had the goal open and everything to score. However, the shot was deflected. A big failure occurring in the North of Alvalade goal, with a left-footed player finishing a cross from the right, in a game against an opponent with a bird on the symbol. Bryan Ruiz has a successor.

Sporting little else bothered the Azoreans in the initial stage. After the four shots taken in the entire I Liga challenge against Vasco Matos’ team, João Pereira’s men now had just one shot on goal in the initial stage, in a safe finish from Catamo. Hjulmand still had a goal disallowed for handball, but Santa Clara’s organization and defensive rigor almost always dominated the dispute against a nervous, erratic and doubtful opponent. Doubt about the game, doubt about the opponent, doubt about yourself. The exception to the order of the Azoreans was Venâncio’s final gift.

For the sixth consecutive match, Sporting did not come to rest winning. Alvalade, who seemed to start with an understanding tone towards the team, was losing his patience, letting out some whistles towards the break.

The restart was, once again, apathetic, culminating, once again, in a great opportunity with Quenda in the action: after the teenager’s cross, the ball fell to Trincão, whose shot did not result in a goal because Venâncio avoided it on the line.

Santa Clara remained ultra aggressive in each move, in a succession of tackles and approaches between the courageous and the epic, the team translation of the energy that Vasco Matos transmits from the bench. At Sporting, the most experienced player in the squad wanted to add nerves and chaos to a chaotic and nervous scenario: faced with the instability that was seen on the pitch, Ricardo Esgaio, the oldest in João Pereira’s group, decided to protest while doing a warm-up exercise, seeing two reds in a row and being sent off.

For chaotic scenarios, a chaotic player. For a team in formation, understanding exactly what it is, a football player in formation, understanding exactly what it is. On a new indefinite night for this indefinite Sporting, a goal from Conrad Harder, the striker still defining the limits of what he is, what he wants to be, what he can be.

The young Dane came off the bench in the 72nd minute and, two minutes later, finished, half with his belly, half with the goalscoring soul he possesses within him, bringing Sporting’s quarter-finals closer.

But the ghosts came. Sporting, just like against Moreirense, Brugge and Boavista, allowed themselves to draw after being ahead. And the 1-1 didn’t come from nowhere, but from the visitors’ insistence on a timeout, contrasting with the locals’ lack of defensive stability.

With each ball in the area, trembling. Danger when Gabriel Silva headed over, danger when Guilherme Ramos, on a night when he looked like Van Dijk, shot to a great Israel defense.

Danger in the 98th minute, at the height of the curse, with the goal coming from a combination of ex-Sporting players. Guilherme Ramos assisted, Pedro Ferreira scored.

It rained a lot during extra time. Perhaps it was the hiding place used by the ghosts, which thus remained hidden entities, undetectable to the eye, very present to Sporting’s state of mind.

A few minutes before the penalty shootout, the gift arrived. Gyökeres thanked him, gave him a sense of goal, and turned it into a victory. The ghosts have not gone away, the feeling of a team divided, in doubt, without solid foundations, persists.