Diogo Luís amazed by Sporting's new star's start: much quality | OneFootball

Diogo Luís highlighted Flávio Gonçalves as one of the players to watch in the new Sporting side, but he also issued a warning about the deep overhaul of the Lions’ squad. The analyst believes that, at 19, the attacking midfielder - who scored against Nacional - is already showing plenty of quality, although he now faces the challenge of becoming more consistent.

"At 19, Sporting’s attacking midfielder is showing plenty of quality. The hard part is not reaching the top, but staying consistent," he wrote in the newspaper 'A Bola', after analyzing the transfer business carried out by the Alvalade club this summer.

"It takes courage to take the risk of such a drastic change, financial ability to carry out the plan quickly, and a well-defined strategy, with arrivals and departures mapped out in advance." Diogo Luís also stresses that Sporting followed a different strategy from Porto and Benfica, investing more in the short term while reducing the wage budget.

"They sold players on high wages, and those who came in were nowhere near those figures," he explains, recalling that "investment in transfers is a cost that can be offset by extraordinary income (player sales), while wages are recurring costs that the club will have to bear every year."

Lowering the average age is also seen as a positive point for the Lions’ future: "With all these changes, the average age ended up coming down, which is key to having a squad capable of generating financial returns in the future. Not because of a lack of quality in the squad, but because there has been a very major renewal, especially in the starting eleven. You lose experience and maturity, you gain youth and ambition. The style of play will necessarily be different. The big question is how this squad, which has lost many of its key figures, will react in moments of greater pressure," he concluded.

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