Por essa Europa fora lemos cabeçalhos pouco abonatórios sobre a participação do Sporting nos Oitavos da Champions, mas não há texto mais brutal do que este de Rory Smith, no Telegraph:
"Any side whose palmares include 18 national titles, 19 national cups [...] warrants the tag "giants". When the club in question regularly boasts attendances in excess of 40,000, takes part in one of the most fiercely-contested derbies in the world and has produced some of the game's greatest players through its famed academy, there can be no question that it deserves to be treated with the utmost respect. That, though, will be in short supply for years to come after what happened last night to Sporting Clube do Portugal [...].
Humbled 7-1 in the Allianz Arena by a Bayern Munich side who are not exactly setting their own domestic championship alight, a team so average they are trailing a Hertha Berlin side whose best player is the failed Liverpool forward Andriy Voronin. That followed a 5-0 reverse in the cacophony of the Jose Alvalalde two weeks ago, for an aggregate scoreline of 12-1. 12-1 in the last 16 of the biggest club competition in world football. 12-1 in a tournament where managers constantly remind us that all the games are tough. A catastrophe like that will take years to recover from. [...] Sporting will never be able to compete. They are destined to become a footnote in football's new world order."
Auch...
katanec