Third derby of the season, this time for a competition which we hold the title and for the first time played in Alvalade. Sporting won clearly and deservedly the previous two, one in neutral ground and the other at our opponent's stadium. For this reason, and also because we have shown so far this season to have a better team and a better coach than our old rivals, I think we are favourites. This is in any case always an unpredictable game and the recent history of the last times these two faced each other for the Cup tells that very clearly.
Sporting's players have more minutes played and more travelling hours than Benfica's after the international break. Bryan Ruiz and Teo Gutiérrez are those that probably are more tired and we also have players recovering from injuries (Ewerton and Jefferson). In spite of this I expect Sporting to show why we won the SuperCup and why we gave them a thrashing at Luz.
Here is the list of players called by JJ, which is the same of the previous derby at Luz with the exception of Naldo who is suspended:
Good first half with Benfica coming for this game with slightly different tactics due to the absence of Jonas, something that seemed to somehow surprise the game plan of JJ.
Sporting could have scored right at the start with Slimani hitting the post but it was Benfica to open the score in a good attack that ended up being the only one during the whole first half. The game was balanced bur Sporting played better, created more chances and ended up reaching the equalizer naturally thanks to the unstoppable goal thirst of Slimani who fought for what seemed to be a lost ball which eventually ended up in the back of the net thanks to a class finish by Adrien.
A flattering scoreline for Benfica even if they are clearly better than in the previous two derbies.
Individually we're seeing a great game by our two CBs, by João Mário, Bryan Ruiz and Slimani.
Sporting came very strong in the start of this second half, something that was to be expected after the surprise factor of SLB's changes was gone. We could have scored more than once in the first 20' of this second period but Benfica managed to contain the pressure at that point. The last 10' of this second half were again of intense pressure by Sporting and we only didn't score because of Júlio César.
Each team has two subs to make, let's see who will be physically better and let's see if we manage to finish off one of those good chances.
We were forced to burn our last two subs due to two injuries of two of our defenders and that's very bad news. The team is knackered but so is Benfica.