PSV and Sporting expect ‘great match’ with striker worth 100 million euros

If you do scoreboard journalism, you could say that Sporting is ‘the PSV of Portugal’ this season. Both champions, both clear in the competition and both lost the Super Cup on penalties. Only Sporting’s goal in the competition is slightly better and the Portuguese have achieved all three points in the Champions League.

The Eindhoven team will look for three points against Sporting at home in the Champions League tonight (9 p.m.).

The history of both clubs contains many similarities. For example, a very young Ronaldo broke through at both clubs and eventually rose to the top of the world. At Sporting the Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo, at PSV the Brazilian Ronaldo.

The Dutchmen Stan Valckx and Stijn Schaars played for both clubs, but also the Portuguese Bruma and Abel Xavier both wore the PSV and Sporting shirts.

There is no major agreement. The current coaches of both clubs love attacking football and have promised that it will be an attractive match tonight.

Peter Bosz praised the opponent and trainer Rúben Amorim during a press conference.

Sportief plays an attacking 3-4-3 system. The playing style is the hallmark of success coach Amorim, who has been the technical boss at the Lisbon club since 2020. “When he was just appointed, I played a friendly match against them with Lyon. We were really blown away there,” Bosz said.

The young Amorim, who turns 40 in January, is in turn just as enthusiastic about his colleague and also expects a spectacle on the field in Eindhoven: “Bosz’s teams always think ahead. So I expected two teams, each with a different culture, but the same concept of the game.”

The fact that PSV won the first Champions League match against Juventus did not mean much to Amorim. “They played the first match against a club with a great history. They will want to dominate the match. I expected a great match, with a lot of goals.”

Bosz realizes that Amorim has brought rust into the Portuguese club. That is the case on a sporting level, but last summer there was unrest around the trainer. Amorim became known as Jürgen Klopp’s successor at Liverpool and was in the concrete interest of West Ham United.

Ultimately, he remained club loyal and even apologized to fans and players for being flown to London for talks with West Ham: “It was a mistake, the timing was completely wrong.”

Amorim started his career at the club with some old pain. As a player he was active for Benfica, Sporting’s city rival and arch rival. Yet the Sporting board dared to take over the young coach for a strong transfer fee from SC Braga in 2020, where he immediately won one of the two Portuguese cup tournaments in his debut year as coach.

Since moving to Lisbon, Amorim has won two titles, a Supercup and two cups. With attacking football.

The concept of the game will be similar to that of PSV, but there is not a big difference. At PSV there is no striker worth 100 million euros. At Sporting, yes.

The fact that Viktor Gyökeres still plays for the Portuguese top club is mainly due to the departure clause of more than 100 million euros in his contract. According to the British media, this prevents clubs such as Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham from signing the goalgetter.

The 26-year-old Swede played functionally relatively anonymously for clubs such as St. Pauli, Swansea and Coventry City. But since his move to Portugal last summer, he has not stopped scoring. In the last championship year he scored 29 goals and 10 assists. This season he already has 10 goals after 7 competition games.

Gyökeres also scored in Sporting’s first Champions League match, although most of the attention in the 2-0 win over Lille was focused on central defender Zeno Debast’s beautiful and devastating strike.

The Belgian international is an undisputed basic player and so Sporting’s Dutchman, Jerry St. Juste, should not do everything he can to get back into the team after his injury.

St. Juste, linked to PSV during the winter break last year, suffered a muscle injury and has played less than a minute this season. The defender is now training, but is not yet in the selection against PSV. In recent years, the former player of SC Heerenveen and Feyenoord, who was plagued by injuries, was a great value.

Joey Veerman is most likely absent from PSV. Ivan Perisic, who made his debut against Willem II on Saturday, is also not included. Due to his late arrival, he has not been registered for the Champions League.