{"id":10378,"date":"2024-11-26T05:19:34","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T05:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10378"},"modified":"2024-11-27T10:08:20","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T10:08:20","slug":"gooners-look-to-feed-on-lusophone-lettuce-for-a-nutritious-snack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10378","title":{"rendered":"Gooners Look to Feed on Lusophone Lettuce for a Nutritious Snack"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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With Arsenal set to face Sporting Clube de Portugal, or Sporting Lisbon as they are known in the English-speaking world, on Tuesday at the Estadio Jose Alvalade in the Portuguese capital, conceivably it could be useful to know that the people of Lisbon are sometimes known as alfacinhas,<\/em> or \u201clittle lettuces\u201d.   The first such reference to the locals of Lisbon as alfacinhas<\/em> was written in Almeida Garrett\u2019s 1846 travel diary, Viagens na Minha Terra, and one of the possible explanations mentioned in my sources is that some itinerant 19th century vegetable vendors thought the locals were as sedentary as vegetables, but that is not to expect Sporting\u2019s high-flying team to be sedentary in any respect at all, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It could also be appropriate to remember the history of Arsenal\u2019s opposition.  Sporting were founded in 1906 by the man for whom their stadium is named, and they are the third most successful club in Portuguese football with 55 major trophies to their name.  Sporting won their first Portuguese championship in 1935, six years after they played in the Portuguese top flight for the first time.  In Sporting\u2019s golden era between 1947 and 1954 they won seven of the eight league titles contested; and in 1964 Sporting lifted their only European silverware when they defeated MTK Budapest in the European Cup Winners\u2019 Cup final. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sporting\u2019s late 20th<\/sup> century dry spell ended when they won the league title in 2000, and followed it up with a league\/cup double in 2002.  Another drought ensued until 2021 when they won the league under recently departed manager Rubem Amorim.  Last season they won the league again, for their 20th league title.  Their 90 points accumulated in the league was their highest-ever total, with 29 wins from 34 games, including all 17 home matches.  In Europe they reached the last 16 of the Europa League, but their undisputed star was Gyokeres, who won the Primeira Liga Player of the Year and Golden Boot awards after bagging 43 goals in all competitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sporting currently occupy second place in the Champions League table with 10 points from four matches played, trailing only Liverpool.  In their two home matches the Lisbon club defeated Lille by 2-0 before they applied a 4-1 powdering to Manchester City as Gyokeres scored thrice.  On their CL travels the Tagus side drew 1-1 at PSG and defeated Sturm Graz in Austria by 0-2 so they have scored nine goals in all, and conceded only two.  Gyokeres scored once each against Lille and Graz so is level on five tallies with Barcelona\u2019s duo of Lewandowski and Raphinha, as well as Bayern\u2019s Kane as the leading goal scorers in this year\u2019s competition.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sporting sit on top of the Primeira Liga table with 11 consecutive wins in 11 matches played, and Gyokeres is top of the Primeira Liga in goals scored with 16, or double the production of his closest competitor in that competition.  The young Sweden striker has been so prolific in front of goal that if Manchester City or some other behemoth club has not bought him by Summer 2025 at the very latest, I will be a monkey\u2019s uncle or a reasonable facsimile thereof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of 10 November Rubem Amorim was still listed as Sporting\u2019s manager.  Amorim, who led the side to its first league title in 20 years and won a second league title last season, was appointed head coach of Manchester United effective 11 November subject to work visa requirements, and Sporting confirmed a few days later that Amorim was out and Joao Pereira was in as their new manager.  In Pereira\u2019s first match in charge, at home last Friday, Sporting secured a 14th straight home win in all competitions against third-tier side Amarante by a 6-0 score in the fourth round of the Portuguese Cup.  Sporting have now won their last 14 home games in all competitions, stretching back to a 1-1 draw against Atalanta in the Europa League eight months ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amorim culminated his four-year stint at Sporting when his side overturned a two-goal deficit to brush aside hosts Braga in their final outing before the international break on November 10.  Sporting came back from a two goal deficit with goals by Morita, Hjulmand, and two by Harder to turn the match completely around.  Seeing as Amorim\u2019s time at Sporting ended so successfully, it will be an imposing challenge for Pereira to achieve a \u201cnew manager bounce\u201d in his first few matches in charge.  Arsenal, on the other hand, have no player who has scored more than once in the Champions League this season, so this contest will have some real challenges in store for the Gunners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal XI<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having come back together after the Interlull in time to play coherently and well in the weekend\u2019s home win against Nottingham Forest, the Gunners will be hoping to continue their decent form against a very difficult European opponent playing on their home turf.  Given the injuries to Ben White and Declan Rice, the Arsenal team is likely to look something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya
Timber  Saliba  Gabriel  Calafiori
\u00d8degaard  Partey  Merino
Saka  Havertz  Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last thing I would want to do would be to underestimate the quality of our top class opposition on this occasion, and I would like to make a thorough apology for comparing Sporting to sedentary little lettuces, if indeed I did such a thing.   As a matter of fact, I would be quite pleased if Arsenal manage to honor the shirt, play well, and come away with a draw in this match, which is why I am predicting a score of Sporting 1 \u2013 Arsenal 1.  A draw would objectively be a very good result, but a win would be just the thing to propel the team to the level we would like to see them playing at going into late November.   In any case , it is great to see Martin \u00d8degaard back in the team and coordinating things in the center of midfield, and I expect him to have quite an impact on the way Arsenal handle this one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy the match, \u2018holics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Arsenal set to face Sporting Clube de Portugal, or Sporting Lisbon as they are known in the English-speaking world, on Tuesday at the Estadio Jose Alvalade in the Portuguese capital, conceivably it could be useful to know that the people of Lisbon are sometimes known as alfacinhas, or \u201clittle lettuces\u201d.   The first such reference […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10378"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10390,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10378\/revisions\/10390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}