Official! Sporting secure deal for promising full-back | OneFootball

Konstantin Nikitenko, 20, has renewed his contract with Sporting, although the details of the new deal have not been disclosed. At the Club since 2015/2016, the Portuguese-Russian right-back has progressed step by step through the ranks, dreaming of reaching the first team - where the academy has been heavily relied on. The player said he was happy to continue wearing the lion on his chest. “It’s a feeling of great happiness. I’ve been here for many years and I’m very happy that they want to keep counting on me and investing in me.”

“I joined as a child, today I’m a man and I’ve improved as a player. Sporting is my second home, or even my first because I’ve already spent more time here than at my father’s house,” he said, recalling his arrival at Sporting at just ten years old.

With a journey marked by some ups and downs, Nikitenko says that everything he has gone through has helped him get to where he is now: “I’m resilient because I haven’t had an easy path, but that has only made me grow as a player. So I’m very grateful for my journey. I would do it all again.”

In that sense, the player, who this season wore the green and white shirt on 24 occasions, scoring two goals for the under-23 team, and also made four more appearances in the Premier League International Cup, is focused and ambitious about a bright future at the Club.

“I’m a very ambitious player and, being ambitious, I know it gets harder and harder to climb the ladder, but I like that pressure. After the under-23s, I’ll work to get an opportunity with the B team and I aim to reach the first team,” he assured. To do that, Nikitenko knows what he will have to do, leaving a promise to Sporting fans: “I’ll keep fighting from the first minute to the last.”

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