At the weekend, in the eleventh round of the Portuguese Super League, Sporting Lisbon faced Maritimo at home.
Pepe meets his old club and partner Andre Cruz.
The trident of Sudong, Ronnie and Quaresma all sat on the bench.
Boloni's external statement was also very fair. The three young players performed well in the UEFA Cup in midweek and tried their best. They need more time to rest.
But the result of Trident's rest was very embarrassing.
That was the reason that Sporting Lisbon's offense was misfiring. It was not until the 60th minute, when Quaresma was replaced, that the team's offense began to improve. In the 74th minute, Ronnie was replaced and continued.
Strengthen the offense.
Sudong replaced Tonito in the 81st minute, partnering with Nikule as a double forward.
The deadlock continued until the final stages of the game.
In the 89th minute, there was a cooperation between Sudong and Quaresma on the right wing. Quaresma dribbled the ball and forced a breakthrough into the penalty area, but was blocked from the baseline and turned into a corner kick.
Albertini took a corner kick, Su Dong feinted a shot, Pepe grabbed the spot and hit the goal with a header.
The Brazilian central defender scored a goal to break the deadlock when facing his old club Maritimo.
Subsequently, the game entered overtime.
At the last moment, after Su Dong retreated to get the ball, he suddenly accelerated and dribbled in. At the top of the arc in the penalty area, he suddenly fired a cold arrow and hit a powerful and heavy batikol, knocking Maritimo's goal again.
goal.
Two to zero.
The entire Alvalade Stadium cheered for Su Dong's goal.
Sporting Lisbon fans are becoming more and more fond of this Chinese youngster who came out of their youth academy.
Although, according to UEFA regulations, Su Dong is not considered a youth training player of Sporting Lisbon, and Su Dong has not even trained at the Sports Tower Stadium, but the fans do not care about the regulations. They only know that Su Dong has been a youth player since he was a youth player.
My own children who came out of the training camp.
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After the game, media reporters again spoke highly of Su Dong's performance after coming on as a substitute.
There is also a frontcourt trident.
So a media reporter asked Boloni, "Since the three substitutions have been given to the frontcourt trident, why not arrange them?"
The press conference hall burst into laughter.
Three substitutions were made to Quaresma, Ronnie and Sudong respectively, and it was these three players who changed the trend of the game. In this case, why not arrange them directly?
Of course, Boloni heard the ridicule and sarcasm thrown at him by the media reporters, but he still maintained his grace.
The Romanian head coach said that they were not arranged, more out of considerations of physical exertion.
"The ages of these three players are 17, 18 and 19 respectively. At their age, many players are still playing as substitutes. I can't make the decision to let them fight on two lines and have double matches a week.
, and don’t think this is a good thing for them.”
However, these self-righteous remarks are somewhat overshadowed by the fact that he previously suppressed Su Dong and supported Nikolai unconditionally. After all, Nikolai played the whole game tonight and once again did nothing.
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A week later, the Portuguese Super League was suspended and the fourth round of the Portuguese Cup ushered in.
This is also Sporting Lisbon's first Portuguese Cup match of the season.
The opponent was an amateur team from the regional league, Estarea.
Boloni did not pay too much attention to this game. The strength of the opponent was there. Sporting Lisbon had good luck in signing the match and it was a home game. The team still played with a substitute lineup.
It's just that Nikolai appears again.
In just two minutes, Carlos Martins opened the scoring for Sporting Lisbon.
But in the seventeenth minute, Estarea got a goal back.
Five minutes later, Nikule finally scored.
This is the Romanian center's first goal this season.
He was so excited that he ran around the stadium, venting his inner depression to his heart's content, and finally hugged coach Boloni vigorously in front of the home team's coaching bench to thank his compatriots for their unconditional trust in him over the past year.
But then, Nikule never scored again.
Ronnie and Danny, who came off the bench, scored two goals to help Sporting Lisbon defeat their opponents 4-1 and advance smoothly.
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After promotion, Sporting Lisbon's fortune is still good.
The opponent in the fifth round is Olivia from the third level.
After the game, the Portuguese media reported on Niculai's goal.
The Romanian center was once highly anticipated, but ended up living in the shadow of Jardel last season, and this season he has been unable to break the goal drought. Now he finally scored for an amateur team in a regional league.
"In fact, even against amateur teams from regional leagues, it is still very difficult for him to score goals."
The implication is that Nikolai wasted too many scoring opportunities.
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After playing in the Portuguese Cup, Sporting Lisbon prepared non-stop for the first leg of the UEFA Cup away game.
The opponent is Thessaloniki from Greece.
Su Dong is not only on the 18-man roster, but will also be assigned.
But this time, he finally experienced the nightmare of playing away games in Europe.
The voyage between Portugal and Greece is 2,500 kilometers, which is undoubtedly a very long journey.
But this is just the beginning.
There are no direct flights from Portugal to Greece, so you have to connect on the way, either in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, or Munich...
In order to rush for time, Sporting Lisbon prepared a flight for the team to transfer to Amsterdam. The whole flight took more than eight hours. When they arrived in Athens, the capital of Greece, it was already two o'clock in the morning.
After staying one night in Athens, we transferred to Thessaloniki in the north the next day.
Not only that, for the weekend game, after Sporting Lisbon played away games, they had to fly back to Lisbon non-stop. It also required such a long journey and back and forth.
When they actually arrived at the competition field, everyone realized that the long journey had exhausted their energy.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Including Su Dong, Ronnie and Quaresma, as well as Nikolai who came on the bench, all performed sluggishly.
Fortunately, Sporting Lisbon's defense was good, but in the 51st minute, the opponent's forward broke the goal, resulting in a zero-to-one away loss.
Throughout the game, Su Dong and the other three performed sluggishly and couldn't really lift their spirits.
…
"Now I finally understand why they all say that when playing away games in Europe, the most terrifying enemy is not the opponent on the field, but the long journey."
On the return plane, Ronnie said with a sad face.
Not long after the game started, his legs became weak.
"Who says it's not?" Quaresma also felt devastated. "This is just Greece. It would be even more terrifying if it encountered Turkey, or Georgia, Azerbaijan or something further east."
Su Dong also smiled bitterly, but he thought of another piece of news.
"Don't forget, there is Kazakhstan further east. They just left the AFC in April and officially became the 52nd UEFA member country in July. They will meet in the Champions League and UEFA Cup in the future.
."
At the end of the story, Su Dong couldn't help but feel happy.
Although they lost, in fact, Thessaloniki's strength is not strong, mainly because it is too difficult to play away from home.
Not to mention having to change planes twice, the distance was very long and the conditions were very poor, which made the players unbearable.
The main reason is that Sporting Lisbon is too poor. If they were like other wealthy teams, they could simply charter a flight.
Firstly, there is no money, and secondly, it only takes half a month from the draw result to the away game. It is difficult for the club to prepare in all aspects. You can imagine how much torture the players have suffered along the way.
However, after returning home and recuperating, it will be the opponent's turn to have nightmares in the second round of the Lisbon battle.
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Traveling long distances and traveling back and forth not only affected the first round of the UEFA Cup, but also affected the Portuguese Super League derby.
In the twelfth round, Sporting Lisbon faced local rival Benfica.
The team's performance is still sluggish.
In the twelfth minute of the first half, the team's defense made a mistake and conceded the first goal.
In the 42nd minute, Thiago scored another goal to help Benfica lead 2-0.
Su Dong came on as a substitute in the 54th minute, but his performance was not outstanding and failed to help the team reverse the situation.
In the end, in this city derby, Sporting Lisbon lost to Benfica 0-2.
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Regarding the team's two consecutive defeats, both the media, fans, and the club's management all expressed understanding.
The team traveled a long distance to play away from home, which was really exhausting and stressful. After returning to Lisbon, Benfica was welcomed immediately. The team could only conduct one afternoon of recovery training the day before the game, leaving no time to prepare and adjust.
On the contrary, Benfica is recharging its energy in Lisbon and waiting for its mortal enemy in the same city.
One goes down and the other goes up, and losing is quite normal.
However, in an interview with the Morning Post, Su Dong said that he was not worried about the team's status at all.
"I know it's really hard to accept two consecutive losses, but the trip to Greece did have a very big impact on us."
Su Dong took the initiative to mention his discomfort. He spent a whole week running back and forth and couldn't even maintain normal training. This was undoubtedly quite uncomfortable and was also the reason for the team's sluggish state.
"In the next week, we can have a good rest. The team will have two days off. I believe this will help us get back into shape as soon as possible and achieve better results in the next few games."
As for the UEFA Cup home game against Thessaloniki, Su Dong said with confidence, "We will definitely reverse our opponent!"
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Sure enough, after a week of rest, Sporting Lisbon's performance has indeed improved a lot.
But in the thirteenth round, when they challenged Beira Mar away from home, only seven minutes into the game, Pepe made a mistake that resulted in a goal from the opponent, and then the game fell into a deadlock.
Sudong came on as a substitute at halftime and assisted Nikulei to score in the 54th minute.
Two minutes later, Nikolai returned the favor and provided an assist for Su Dong.
The two centers finally broke the awkward situation and each assisted the other.
In the 79th minute, Ronnie assisted Tonito to score another victory.
In the end, Sporting Lisbon reversed Beiramar 3-1 and took all three points.