ANDIn the middle of the transition period, Sporting will travel, at 5:45 pm (Mainland Portugal time) this Tuesday, to Stamford Bridge, ‘loaned home’ from Chelsea, to face Shakhtar Donetsk, in a match counting for the fourth round of the Champions League league phase.
Between the dismissal of Rui Borges and the hiring of Paulo Fonseca, Tiago Fernandes was ‘promoted’ from the B team to the main team, in a scenario that he himself is already familiar with, given that, in 2018, he played a similar role, between the departure of José Peseiro and the arrival of Marcel Keizer, interestingly, also in London.
At the time, the Montijense caused a total surprise, in the Europa League, by taking a goalless draw with Arsenal from the Emirates Stadium, so the objective is, of course, to do their thing again, at the very least, to keep alive the hopes of progressing to the next phase of what is the biggest club competition in European football.
It now remains to be seen whether it will maintain the original plan, without ‘raising waves’, or whether, instead, it will seek to stir them up, in search of stability that, until now, has been practically non-existent. This, given that they will not be able to count on the contribution of the injured Zeno Debast and Nuno Santos.
The Portuguese, remember, currently live in 12th place, with the same six points as Barcelona, ​​Como, Manchester City, Clube Brugge and Borussia Dortmund. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, have four points, so they share 17th place with AS Roma, Atlético de Madrid and PSV.
Shakhtar Donetsk-Sporting will have an all-Slovak field refereeing team, led by Ivan Kruzliak, who will have Branislav Hancko and Jan Pozor as assistants, and Peter Kralovic as fourth referee. At the helm of VAR will be the Italian Marco di Bello who will have the help of his compatriot Daniele Chiffi.
Scroll through the photo gallery and check out Sporting’s likely eleven.
