New Back-4 Tested

Ronny----------Caneira----------Tonel----------M.Garcia

Nani, João Moutinho, Yannick and Miguel Veloso are at the Portuguese U-21 Training-Camp and Rui Patricio went to Holland with the Junior Squad.

1) First of all I think switching Caneira from left to centre and back again isn't good for him, he has never shown the ability to assimilate 2 positions at the same time with equal effectiveness and if he keeps jumping back and forth....... his performance alongside Tonel Vs Braga last January 7th where the lack of communication and automatisms between them was apparent is still fresh in my mind.

While Ronny and Garcia present different caracteristics and should balance themselves out nicely the pairing of Caneira and Tonel strikes me as 2 players too similar, I'm not certain on which side of the axis each was positioned but considering Ronny will attack and Miguel Garcia will defend I hope the more agressive CB gets positioned on the rigth side of the axis and the zonal marker on the left side as to balance things out, problem is that neither one is really a zonal marker like Polga is or like Veloso can be.

2) This is the 2nd time that Rui Patricio isn't available due to Junior commitements, what's the deal? Is he going to be the 3rd GK or isn't there enough faith in Tiago Jorge, André Martins and Nuno Silva? At the Otten Cup Sporting's Juniors will get to face PSV as well as Heerenveen and Vila Nova (Brasilians).

Dynamo Zagreb Brasilian forward Dudu (AKA "Eduardo Alves da Silva") got mentioned as a possible addition to out squad for next season. The player is 23 years old (25/02/1983) and is under contract until 2009 and Zagreb is remoured to wish for 5 million, he's scored 6 goals in 22 games for the Croats and he is 1,77 tall and weighs 70 Kgs and moved to Croatia aged 16 and is now a Croatian citizen and has played for their U-21 squad.



André