A trio of goals give victory against GD Chaves

Sporting Clube de Portugal took a 0-3 win home from their road trip to GD Chaves, rounding off the first half of the season as outright leaders in Liga Portugal.

On a very cold night with a smattering of rain, they were clearly the better team against the league's basement side. A 0-1 lead at the interval was followed up in the second half with two goals in the space of just four minutes, confirming a seventh consecutive victory.

Without Hidemasa Morita, Geny Catamo and Ousmane Diomande, away with their respective national teams, coach Rúben Amorim made four changes to the XI from the match against CD Tondela in the Taça de Portugal: Antonio Adán, Eduardo Quaresma, Matheus Reis and Morten Hjulmand all came in, whilst Marcus Edwards returned to the squad after recovering from injury.

After a somewhat lukewarm start to the game, not helped by the mixed state of the pitch due to accumulated water, Sporting CP tried to take over and create the first clear scoring opportunities.

GD Chaves goalkeeper Hugo Souza proved decisive and prevented an opening goal from two consecutive moves: In the first, he blocked a header by Viktor Gyökeres from the  heart of the area, as well as Esgaio's rebound. In the second, a few moments later, in almost a carbon copy, he denied Gyökeres again, and then Steven Vitória cut out the second ball shot by Francisco Trincão.

From here on, Sporting CP began to completely dominate the match, against a GD Chaves who rarely had the ball. Pedro Gonçalves threatened with two shots, the first of which went just outside the post and the second that was saved by Hugo Souza when through on goal.

Close to halftime, in the 44th minute, and after much persistence, they were rewarded with a deserved goal to make it 0-1. Following a corner from the right side, Paulinho took advantage of two bad clearances from the opposition defence and stabbed the ball into the net, handing his team the lead.

In the second half, with Sebastián Coates subbed on, Os Leões practically decided the game by scoring twice in the space of just four minutes. In the 52nd minute, Trincão followed up a cross from Nuno Santos, hitting a looping shot that left no chance for the goalkeeper. In the 56th minute Gonçalves took advantage of a bad clearance to make it 0-3 from outside the area.

With nothing to lose, and with the playing surface in increasingly worsening conditions, causing the ball to stop still in some areas, the home team advanced their lines and had more of the ball. However, they never managed to trouble Adán, who was but a mere spectator, and in the final stretch it was Sporting CP that came closer to scoring.

Gyökeres tried to score off a pair of moves in which he got through on the far side, even forcing Hugo Souza to make a great save on one occasion, but the action gradually petered out before the final whistle and a tremendous win for Sporting CP.

With this result, Os Leões end the first half of the season top of the league with 43 points. Another away game is coming up on Thursday, against FC Vizela.

Sporting CP: Antonio Adán [C] [GK], Eduardo Quaresma (Sebastián Coates, 45’), Gonçalo Inácio, Matheus Reis (Luís Neto, 85’), Ricardo Esgaio (Dário Essugo, 85’), Morten Hjulmand, Pedro Gonçalves (Daniel Bragança, 79’), Nuno Santos, Francisco Trincão, Paulinho e Viktor Gyökeres.