Rui Borges: Juventus v Sporting duo were struggling a bit | OneFootball

At the end of Sporting's 1-1 draw away against the Italian side Juventus, in a match for the fourth round of the Champions League, Rui Borges attended the press conference and analyzed his players' performance, admitting that Georgios Vagiannidis and Geovany Quenda had "some difficulties".

"In the first half both were having some difficulty. We were allowing them to move the ball around and face our defensive line, which forced us to run much more. In the second half they even improved a little, but were lacking some freshness. To be honest, I was tempted to make changes earlier because of the difficulties we were having in that area, which was actually Juventus’ strongest side," the coach began by saying.

Regarding João Simões, Rui Borges admitted that the midfielder was not at 100% during the week: "He was in doubt until the start of the game. He had a minor setback in training, but he felt very good today and played a great game. When he came off, he was at the limit of his effort and left due to exhaustion."

On the fact that Luis Suárez started on the bench instead of Fotis Ioannidis, the coach explained that it was not due to any physical problem: "It was a decision. He also had a slight discomfort in his knee in the last game, but it was not enough to rule him out," he explained.

The green and white team will be back on the pitch next Saturday, November 8, against Santa Clara, in a match for the 11th round of Liga Portugal Betclic. The match against Vasco Matos' side will be played at 8:30 p.m. at Estádio de São Miguel, in Ponta Delgada.

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