Sporting is going back to work in Alcochete today, to prepare for the 2023/2024 season. After a season in which the Lions did not win any trophies and did not qualify for the Champions League due to the 4th place in the championship, the squad is far from closed and reinforcements are not yet known.
With the signing of Swedish striker Viktor Gyökeres in full swing, a right winger and a defensive midfielder are also on the request list for Rúben Amorim, who enters his fifth season at the club (he spent just three months in the first season, after arriving in March 2020 from Sp.Braga).
Against DN, Delfim, a former player of Sporting, the club for which he became national champion in 1999/2000, warns that this season is crucial due to the reduction in the number of Portuguese teams that will have access to the Champions League in 2024. /2025 . “Only the national champion has direct access and the runner-up qualifies for the qualifying rounds. This will make the competition even tougher for the top teams, and of course Sporting will have to build a squad that is as strong as possible to beat the rivals.” , he said.
Dias Ferreira, former leader and candidate for the presidency, already prefers not to attach great importance to the movements in the squad. “I find it limiting to limit discussions about Sporting’s moment to the players who can enter and leave. I am more concerned about the club’s sustainability project and it hurts me a lot to hear people say that we have no money because current expenses need to be covered. someone to come out and say if this is true,” he lamented.
Delfim recognizes the anxiety of Sporting supporters, who still have not seen confirmed reinforcements, as natural, while Benfica invests in strength. “If they see the champion and rival strengthen themselves in quantity and quality, it is normal that the supporters foresee another difficult season,” he said, although he admits to agree with the management’s caution. “I do not agree with those who wonder where the money from player sales that Sporting made in recent years has gone, as if that money should go to strengthening the squad. A large part of that value will have to be used.” to cover debts … FC Porto has made hundreds of millions of euros in sales in recent years and the truth is that the management is the most chaotic there is and the difficulties in fulfilling the fair game UEFA financial. I commend Sporting’s management for its financial balance and for striving to run the club in a sustainable way,” he stressed.
Dias Ferreira also takes a look at Segunda Circular’s rival when he says that “budgets don’t win championships, but they help”, barbing the president, Frederico Varandas: “I understand that in a club like Sporting the priority is not to sell players and not win titles.”
Sound and spearhead
Delfim considers the strengthening of two positions absolutely necessary. “It takes a great striker, who scores goals, and also a midfielder who covers the departure of João Palhinha, a year ago, and this last one from Ugarte. In the first case, I must confess that I do not like the Swedish player know. [Gyökeres], but I trust the coach’s judgment. In the second there are also internal answers, like Essugo, and I think that can be a solution, but I think it takes someone from the outside, an all-rounder who has the same energy as the two players who left.”
And he also points to Daniel Bragança. “From what we saw him do before he got injured [esteve ausente toda a época passada] and according to the words of the coach, according to which he will be the great reinforcement for this season, I think he can be an important piece, as long as he manages to present himself in good physical condition,” he stressed.
Fans are unanimous in their support for Rúben Amorim. But will this relationship be tested in this new season, after the disappointment that formed 2022/2023? Dias Ferreira states that “last season’s bad season was not Rúben Amorim’s fault” and criticizes what he believes is the premature sale of young players. “There is a lot of talk about training betting, but once players start to stand out in the main team, they are sold and so it is not possible to build teams,” he said.
Delfim remains a supporter of the coach. “Of course he should also be criticized for what happened last season, but he was far from being primarily responsible and there is no job a coach can resist when key players are taken away from him at the start of the season without being compensated for it.” And he added: “Most of the defeats were due to individual errors by the athletes and on the other hand, we saw that the team produced a lot of offensive play, because it was not more effective. Sporting ended the season with good football. , it adding victories and the elimination in the Europa League with Juventus was very inglorious, because Sporting was in no way inferior.” The former player also states that “there seems to be a healthy and calm environment between the management structure and the technical team, and if everyone keeps rowing in the same direction, the football team will be closer to success”.
And there is something that Delfim and Dias Ferreira are aligned on: it is absolutely forbidden for anyone else to leave between the usual starters. In addition, Amorim has long stated that, following the departure of Ugarte, he considers Gonçalo Inácio, Pedro Gonçalves and Marcus Edwards to be fundamental.
Source: DN
