Sporting CP analysis with Andy Brassell, European football expert

We're out in Lisbon, Portugal for Matchday Two of our UEFA Champions League, Group D campaign against Sporting Clube de Lisbon and here, European football expert Andy Brassell, a regular on the pages and podcasts of the likes of The Guardian, Football Ramble and talkSPORT, gives us his insight into the Leões of Lisboa ahead of this evening's clash at Estadio Jose Alvalade.

Amorim has strong conviction in his methods

Andy: "You may remember, last season, Sporting were absolutely hammered by Ajax (lost 5-1) in their opening group game. Ruben Amorim, the coach, came under quite a bit of criticism at home for that, with people basically saying that the team couldn’t play as open in the Champions League as they play in Primeira Liga. Don’t forget, they went into that Champions League campaign as Portuguese champions, having won the title for the first time in 19 years in 2020/21. He continued to play bravely, and they ended up rolling over Borussia Dortmund (beat them 3-1 at home in Matchday Five) and going through to the knockout stages. It just shows that Amorim has strong conviction in his methods. Sporting paid a release clause to Braga for Amorim for quite a lot of money, and he’d only been at Braga for about 10 matches. However, Sporting saw a little bit of him in the top flight and thought, ‘this guy can take us to the next level’. People in Portugal weren’t sure at the time, but he did an incredible job in Lisbon and took them to the title playing incredibly brave, attacking football. I guess the problem is that clubs have gone into Sporting and bought players, Joao Palhinha went to Fulham, Matheus Nunes, one of the best players in Primeira Liga, moved to Wolves, and Spurs fans will have seen just how good he is on 20 August, he really looks the part. They’ve also lost Pablo Sarabia, who was on loan from PSG last season. However, there is a lot of quality elsewhere in the team..."

Edwards 'at it from day one'

Andy: "Sporting are going to be able to score goals, I’ve no doubt about that, and the interesting one I guess from a Spurs perspective is Marcus Edwards. They bought him half-way through last season from Vitoria de Guimaraes, where he played pretty well. They did clever work with him last season. Edwards normally plays on the right, with that left foot, and they played him in some games, didn’t over tax him, he was on the bench a few times, including the Champions League Round of 16 against Manchester City, just getting used to the way they play. Sporting were flying at that time anyway. In any other ‘normal’ season, they would have won the league again last term, but Porto were just incredible (Porto lost one in 34, Sporting just three). In terms of points total (85) and the goals they scored (73), they couldn’t have done much more, but they still ended up losing the title by six points! Edwards was ready for the start of this season and has been at it from day one. He’ll be a big player in this one. Amorim’s team... and we’ve seen this with Nunes at Wolves... when Portuguese players come over now, they adapt much quicker, because Portuguese football is a little more physical now. The bigger teams have realised that to compete in Europe, you have to be fitter, stronger and faster. Porto and Sporting are good examples of that."