Sporting Draw Twice

The pre-season advances towards 21st August, when Sporting will travel to Villarreal to play the first match of La Liga. This week, the lads have paid a visit to Ponferradina on Wednesday and another to Marino on Saturday. Both teams compete in semi-professional leagues in the third and fourth tier of Spanish football, but Sporting only could save two draws to 1-1.
The games were quite similar to each other. Preciado fielded two different line-ups for each half but players could not perform as desired because of fatigue. Sporting faced these two matches having trained hard on the morning of the matches so the result cannot be consider as relevant.

At Ponferrada (against Ponferradina) the two line-ups were:
First half: Cuéllar, Botía, Jorge, Lora; Rivera, Ayoze, Luis Morán, Sangoy, De las Cuevas, Alex Menéndez, Alex Barrera.
Second half: Juan Pablo, Damián, Gregory, Iván Hernández, Canella, Sergio, Carmelo, Nacho Cases, Bilic, Barral, Trejo.

Whilst at Luanco (against Marino of Luanco) the line-ups were:
First half: Raúl; Pedro Orfila, Alain, Jorge, Alex Menéndez; Nacho Cases, Álex Barrera; Ayoze, Carmelo, Mendy; Sangoy.
Second half: Juan Pablo; Damián, Gregory, Iván Hernández, Canella; Sergio Alvarez, Eguren; Nacho Novo, De las Cuevas, Trejo; Barral.

De las Cuevas scored in the first match and Nacho Novo in the second. This week Sporting will play four matches, so it is predictable that the coach will change the system of two different line-ups per game. With only three weeks left to the start of the season, pre-season matches will start to show the (real) squad's strength.
News has come from the transfer market. Former Sporting coach Marcelino, now Sevilla's manager, has closed the door to Armenteros and the Argentinian will not be able to play at Gijón this season. Sporting had a verbal agreement with the player, but the Andalusian team have decided to include him in the squad for this season. In addition, André Castro has been discarded by Porto coach Vítor Pereira and Sporting have intensified negotiations to sign the player either on loan or as a transfer. The club expects to complete the return of the Portuguese next week.