Following the national circumstances that have seen this weekend’s domestic action postponed over the weekend, Spurs’ trip to the Estadio Jose Alvalade to take on Sporting Clube de Portugual (CP) this coming Tuesday (kick-off at 5:45 PM BST) looks set to go ahead. This news comes after a bizarre “technical error”, to use the club’s words, that saw an erroneous announcement that the match was going to be postponed, but this is now revealed to be no longer the case:
Due to a technical error, Tuesday’s match against Sporting CP is displaying as postponed on our website.
We can confirm this is incorrect – the match is going ahead as planned. We are looking into the issue urgently and apologise for any inconvenience caused.
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) September 11, 2022
Although Antonio Conte is yet to confirm our team news, with his pre-match presser yet to come, it is expected that Lucas Moura will be our only absentee, with the Brazilian anticipated to sit the match with the tendon issue that has seen him miss the past four matches. Bearing that in mind, along with the time elapsed since Wednesday’s win over Marseille, we may very well see minimal changes to the side that saw off the Frenchmen in our Group D opener.
The circumstances regarding Her Majesty The Queen’s passing over the weekend have obviously seen Spurs play one game less than their Portuguese opponents since they both last saw midweek European action last week, with our hosts also emerging victorious in their Group D opener in Frankfurt. This rest should hopefully work in our favour, though nothing in football is ever as straightforward as it should be.
That said, Sporting’s record against English opposition in the Champions League isn’t exactly respectable, having failed to win any of their 6 matches against English opponents in the competition. To beat us on Tuesday, they will therefore have to make history.
Moreover, despite their impressive recent run and their upturn in fortunes under Amorim (read more on these in an article I wrote earlier about our opponents here), defensive frailties still remain a feature of Sporting’s fledgling campaign, with last season’s Primeira Liga runners-up shipping 8 goals in 4 league matches so far (via Soccerway).
With all due respect to Eintracht Frankfurt and the Portuguese league, we will undoubtedly be the toughest opponents they will have faced this season (and the Euro Club Index can certainly back me up on that one). It is genuinely up to us to turn up to Lisbon with the right attitude – that is the only thing standing between us and a victory of any sort.
It is also worth noting that, although Marseille were not as aggressive as expected in their pressing in our victory over them last week, they still caused us difficulty to play through them in the first half until the red card. This means that, unless we commit to winning our 50/50s and individual duels, we’ll struggle to play through Sporting Lisbon’s press, as we did for large periods of the Marseille game on Wednesday. Hopefully, this is something Conte and the boys will have been mindful of and working on since.
I’m hoping that our quality, commitment to winning our duels, and newfound mentality under Conte (and of course, our extra rest) will swing the game in our favour. COYS!