Sporting Clube de Portugal

Ground: Estádio José Alvalade

Visits: 1

Date: 17th February 2019

Match: Sporting CP - Braga 3-0 (Primeira Liga)

Attendance: 27 673

Last season I attended Derby da Capital, Benfica v Sporting, and only then realized how close the two grounds are to each other. Estádio José Alvalade is situated next to Campo Grande bus- and metro station, not far from the airport. Built adjacent to the site of the old stadium the ground was opened in 2003 and has a capacity of 50 100. In EURO 2004 five games were played at Estádio José Alvalade and people from Sweden fondly remember Sweden beating Bulgaria 5-0 here. Having been to Campo Grande earlier in the day it was nice to stop by my hotel before making the short walk to the ground. Sporting are often referred to as Sporting Lisbon but the official name of the club is Sporting Clube de Portugal. The club has many different sport sections but when it comes to football they have won 18 Portuguese league titles but the latest title was in 2002. In 1964 Sporting CP won the Cup winners’ cup and domestically they have 16 cup titles. This season they are already 10 points adrift of leaders Porto and before this match they were only fourth in the table.

My seat was in row 20 of the upper tier of the East Stand and I had a really good view of the action. Braga are third in the table but that was obviously not something that made this game more attractive for home fans. I was hoping for at least 35 000 to show up for this game but the poor results this season meant only 27 600 was at Estádio José Alvalade tonight. The Sporting ultras to my left were silent for the first 12 minutes of the game. I am not sure if it was some kind of protest but once the silence was over a nice tifo covered most of the lower tier. On the pitch a well-taken free-kick meant Sporting took the lead after 33 minutes. It was quite an entertaining game of football but when Sporting scored from the penalty spot to make it 2-0 it felt like game over. In the end it was 3-0 to the home team and the home fans could celebrate three points and an improved chance of making it into next year´s Champions League. Another long day came to an end for me and tomorrow I head back towards northern Portugal.