Rui Borges plans a key change to Sporting’s starting eleven | OneFootball

Rui Borges is expected to make just one change to Sporting’s starting eleven for the match against Kairat, compared to his choices for the last game against Famalicão. Ricardo Mangas is likely to return to the bench and Maxi Araújo will be back in the starting lineup.

Although he only played a few minutes in the fifth round of Liga Portugal Betclic, the Uruguayan international has already been cleared to get more playing time, something that should happen in the Lions’ Champions League debut, especially given the coach’s aim to manage the squad during a busy fixture period.

Despite Hidemasa Morita’s return to training and the squad list, Rui Borges is expected to keep Morten Hjulmand and Giorgi Kochorashvili in the starting lineup, since the Japanese player will need to be gradually reintegrated into the Sporting team to avoid further unnecessary injury risks.

Sporting will be back on the pitch on Thursday, September 18, against Kairat Almaty. The match against the team led by Rafael Urazbakhtin, valid for the first round of the Champions League, will be played at Estádio José Alvalade and is scheduled to kick off at 8:00 pm.

In the league phase of the prestigious competition, it should be noted, Sporting will face not only Kairat, but also Napoli (on October 1, at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium), Marseille (on October 22, at Alvalade), Juventus (on November 4, at Juventus Stadium), Club Brugge (on November 26, at Alvalade), Bayern Munich (on December 9, at Allianz Arena), PSG (on January 20, at Alvalade) and, finally, Athletic Bilbao (on January 28, at San Mamés).

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