Sporting roll over Basel to stroll through to next round

Basel 0-3 Sporting (agg. 0-5)

Sporting had no trouble dispatching Swiss championship leaders Basel to book a last-16 Uefa Cup tie against Premiership side Bolton Wanderers.

A goal in the 2nd minute from Pereirinha settled any lingering doubts about who would be making progress, and two more European goals from Liedson gave the Lisbon club a comprehensive 5-0 aggregate victory.

Injuries robbed Paulo Bento of the services of midfield stars Vukcevic and Izmailov, with Brazilian Tiui taking the place of the former and young Portuguese midfielder Bruno Pereirinha stepping in for the Russian.

And it would be youth product Pereirinha, who has come into his own with a series of vibrant displays over the past month, who opened the scoring from Sporting’s first attack.

Captain Joao Moutinho threaded a wonderful cross-field pass that beat the Basel backline and Pereirinha hit a crisp first-time shot into the corner of the net from the edge of the area to spark early celebrations among the 5,000 Portuguese fans in the stadium.

Patricio shines

Sporting continued to look dangerous when attacking but in a wide open game their defence wavered on several occasions during the first half, giving young international goalkeeper Rui Patricio the chance to shine.

The keeper made good saves from Eduardo, Ergic and Derdyok twice, the last of these stops a superb reflex block from a rasping close-range shot.

Shortly before the interval Sporting doubled their lead when a long clearance upfield from Patricio skimmed off the head of a retreating Basel defender and Liedson beat two adversaries for pace to coolly lift the ball over Crayton and into the net.

If the hosts thought Sporting would take their foot off the pedal they were disappointed as the Lions started the second half in even more dominant mood. Three times the visitors had been a whisker away from scoring before Liedson notched his second on 49 minutes.

Pereirinha was again involved, with Crayton parrying his powerful shot straight to the feet of the Brazilian marksman who rifled the rebound into the net.

Sporting remained in complete control of the match, even after Bento had withdrawn Polga, Romagnoli and Grimi; the threesome earning an early rest when replaced by Gladstone, Farnerud and Ronny.

Ronny comes close

Left-back Ronny twice came close to getting his name on the scoresheet. On 74 minutes Moutinho played a perfectly weighted throughball but Crayton did well to smother the shot. The Brazilian then hit a venomous free kick from all of 30 metres that came crashing back off the bar.

A highly satisfying display from Sporting who have now won eight of their last nine matches and will travel to England to face Bolton on 6 March confident that they can make further progress in the competition.

Basel:
Crayton, Zanni, Majstorovic, Marque, Hodel, Degen, Huggel (Malik Ba, 45), Ergic (Perovic, 70), Carlitos, Eduardo (Frei, 59), Derdiyok

Sporting:
Rui Patricio, Abel, Polga, Tonel (Gladstone, 54), Grimi (Ronny, 67), Miguel Veloso, Joao Moutinho, Bruno Pereirinha, Romagnoli (Farnerud, 59), Rodrigo Tiui, Liedson
Yellow Card: Abel

Goals:
[0-1] Pereirinha, 2
[0-2] Liedson, 41
[0-3] Liedson, 50