Former Rui Borges teammate recalls time with Sporting boss: old warhorse | OneFootball

A former teammate of Rui Borges recalled his time with the native of Mirandela, before he coached Sporting

Pedro Machado reminisced about the times he was a teammate of Rui Borges. At a time when the current Sporting coach - who has already analyzed the draw against Braga - still had a career on the field, the two were teammates at Mirandela in the 2015/16 season, with the Lions' coach nearing retirement from the field.

“He was in the final phase of his career, but he was a good player. In football slang, he was that old carcass that had quality. He was the team captain, you could already see in him the desire to help, especially with us, the youngsters, by giving directions and some advice,” said the Al Tadhamon player in statements to the newspaper Record.

“I was already paying attention to certain things, I had some conversations with him, and he always tried to help me in what he felt I could improve,” added Pedro Machado, who then revealed he was not surprised by Rui Borges' arrival at the helm of Sporting.

“It didn't surprise me there, because he moved from Vitória to Sporting, and I already recognized a lot of quality in him. It surprised me when he started his career at Mirandela and the path he took at Académico de Viseu. I always followed his trajectory and began to realize that his teams had something special,” he stated.

In conclusion, Pedro Machado confessed that a potential move of Rui Borges to Sporting had already been a topic of conversation at his home, thanks to his wife: “My wife is a Sporting fan, and with Ruben Amorim's departure, we talked about Rui Borges being the ideal coach because of the work he was doing at Vitória and what I knew of him as a colleague. I was very happy to see that he was indeed the chosen one.”

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