Ex-Sporting and Juventus defender sad over few chances at Lions | OneFootball

Merih Demiral was one of the players who played for Sporting and Juventus, teams that will face each other on Tuesday night for the Champions League. The central defender gave an interview where he talked about his time in Portugal and regretted not having more opportunities at Alvalade.

"Portugal, and especially Lisbon, has always been a special place for me, full of beautiful and good memories. I worked hard for my dreams at Alcanenense and one day, during training, a scout named Paolo from Lisbon discovered me and invited me for a trial at Sporting. The first day was incredible — I trained first with the under-19s in the morning and then, on the same day, with the B team. I must have impressed them because, right after those training sessions, they prepared a contract for me. From that day on, my dream was to play in Sporting's first team," said the 27-year-old Al Ahli player to the newspaper 'A Bola'.

The athlete expressed his dissatisfaction for having played only one game for Sporting's first team, at the time under the leadership of Jorge Jesus: "I only played one professional game, but I had big dreams – to play in the League, stay there for many years, play at Alvalade. I had set that goal for myself, to become a first-team player. I knew the fans believed in me. Those who watched my games always told me that."

Even so, the footballer says he was happy with the Lions: "Not being able to play regularly in the first team made me sad, but leaving that way and taking a different path in my career turned out to be good. I believe that returning to Turkey helped me build a more successful career. I have many great memories of Sporting – I still keep in touch with many of my friends from there and, sometimes, we even play against each other. I only have good memories," he concluded.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.