Sporting faces Lens in Champions League on Tuesday without Zalazar and Debast

Absences and squad selection

Sporting travel to Lens for the second league-phase matchday of the Champions League, which is played on Tuesday, 13 October, with kick-off at 17:45 at the Bollaert-Delelis stadium. Coach Rui Borges said at his press conference on Monday, 12 October, that Rodrigo Zalazar, who left the match against Braga injured, is out for at least the next two games. Zeno Debast went to the national team and did not play there, and he came back deconditioned with a discomfort. Borges said it was nothing worrying, but the club chose not to take the risk of calling him up. Borges also said that every player is at risk of starting or not, and that the team will field the best XI in strategic and quality terms.

Borges on Lens

Borges described Lens as a team with a difficult atmosphere at home that has already beaten the reigning European champions, PSG, in the Super Cup this season. He noted that Lens won the Coupe de France last season, changed coach during the break and used the pause to absorb new dynamics and ideas. He also said Lens played a very good match against Lyon and called them a very intense, courageous side with one of the best attacks in Ligue 1. He stressed their crossing and set-piece threat, saying:

I think last season they were the team that crossed the most, and this season too.

Borges added that Lens are strong in the final third, bring many players into the attack and inside the box, and are especially dangerous at home. He warned that the physical side of the French team has nothing to do with height or strength, but with intensity.

Physical demands and individual roles

Borges said Sporting must match that intensity across the team and rejected the idea that Ibrahima Ba alone can settle the match, saying that Ba is not a superman in the competitive part. He said the team improved against Braga and won that game because of it, and that the Lens match will demand a lot physically from the whole side. Asked about criticism directed at goalkeeper Rui Silva, Borges took responsibility for the goals conceded:

When we concede, it is not Rui Silva who suffers, otherwise he would always be the guilty one.

He added that when Sporting concede, all of them suffer and the main fault lies with the coach. Borges also said he is not concerned by criticism of him and his team.

Champions League ambitions

Borges compared Sporting to a Mercedes when asked which car the club is in this Champions League season, and framed the comparison around validation rather than luxury:

We are a Mercedes. It may not be top of the range, but we have the validation of being a big team.

He said the club is now a regular presence in the competition and wants to keep growing in it against the best sides in Europe and the world. Borges also repeated that the club's priority is the domestic league, saying that to be in the Champions League the team has to be champions. The Sporting squad is already on its way to France, and a video shared on the club's social media shows the pilot of the plane holding a green and white scarf from the cockpit window.