Lens assistant says Sporting have 2 outstanding young talents | OneFootball

Nélson Morgado will meet Sporting again in the Champions League, this time working for Lens, where he is part of the coaching staff as an assistant coach. The clash between the French side and the Lions is scheduled for October 13, on matchday two of the league phase, and will carry special meaning for the 39-year-old Portuguese coach, who represented the Alvalade club during his youth development as a player.

"Facing Sporting in the Champions League is, for me, a very special moment. Not only because of the scale of the match or the challenge ahead of us, but also because we are talking about a club from my country that I already had the privilege of representing at youth level. It is a pity that the game will not be played in Lisbon, because it would naturally be special to return to a stadium and a country that are part of my history. But we will play at home, in Lens, in front of our fans, and we will want to give them a great European night," he told the newspaper 'Record'.

Despite its personal significance, the coach knows Lens will face a complicated task against the green-and-whites: "We know perfectly well that a very difficult match awaits us. In the Champions League there are no easy games, and even less so against a team like Sporting. It is a club with enormous tradition, very well structured, which has done excellent work in recent years and has also shown, in European competitions, its ability to compete at the highest level."

Nélson Morgado also praised Sporting's ability to work the market and invest in young players, highlighting names such as João Simões, the new number 8, and Flávio Gonçalves: "It is also a club that works the market very well and is able to identify players with great potential. Even so, they still make room for young talents coming through the Academy such as João Simões and Flávio Gonçalves. It is a very important source of talent for Portuguese football. I would also highlight the work and personality of Mister Rui Borges, who has been doing consistent, very high-quality work. He managed to implement a new system and different ideas on top of a coach who had been successful. That deserves praise."

The reunion will therefore have a strong emotional component for the Portuguese coach, but Morgado guarantees that the priority will be to defend Lens's interests. "It will be very special because of everything Portugal means to me. I will experience this match with great pride and emotion, but above all with the professionalism and ambition to represent Lens in the best way possible," he concluded.

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