Sporting Lisbon had a mountain to climb last night and also had history to repeat. Unprecedentedly, the Portuguese Club achieved both and in the process shattered Bodø/Glimt’s dream and denied them a piece of history of their own.
Last week Sporting had gone down 0-3 to Bodø/Glimt in Norway and it appeared that the Norwegian Club had one foot in the Quarter finals. Sporting had to reverse the deficit and repeat their feat of 1964 when they had beaten Manchester United 5-0 to reverse a 0-3 deficit. The situation was similar as the 2nd leg of the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 got underway at the Stadion José Alvalade in Lisbon.
The Sporting side came out strongly and had several chances to score which went abegging. Even Bodø/glimt hit the cross bar and were denied. The breakthrough however came in the 34th minute through Goncalo Inacio which restored a sense of belief in the Portuguese.
It started to rain in Lisbon as Sporting scored their second through Goncalves in the second half and then got the aggregate to an even keel as Suarez converted a penalty to raise hopes of a magical turnaround for Sporting.
Bodø/Glimt faced the heat as they were run ragged by a side which looked fiercely determined to win that night. The match went into extra time with the Norwegian hopes hanging by a thread.
Sporting did not waste much time and dealt a killer blow to Bodø/glimt as Araujo scored their 4th of the night. The young Nel came off the bench to score Sporting’s 5th just before the final whistle to win the contest 5-3 on aggregate and storm into the UEFA Champions League Quarter Finals.
The José Alvalade witnessed unbelievable scenes as the fans celebrated with their team. The visitors from Norway had a shell-shocked look. They had the advantage, but the home team was just too good to be true and played as if there was no tomorrow, to completely demolish the Arctic challenge.
Kudos to Rui Borges, Sporting’s Manager, for instilling great belief in his team. The players too responded big time to conjure an amazing victory. One for the Ages.
Dare they say ‘ History Repeats Itself ‘.
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