Sporting battle to victory over Belenenses with a late penalty
Sporting battled to another three points this Monday night, beating Belenenses 1-0 on Liga NOS matchday 11. Jorge Jesus' side dominated from start to finish, but it took a penalty in added-time to finally define to the result.
Bouyed by a thunderous performance in the Europa Leauge in Moscow last Thursday and encouraged by an enthusiastic crowd, the team from Alvalade soon had Belenenses on the back foot. After just four minutes Montero picked out Bryan Ruiz high up the pitch for the Costa Rican to find a yard of space and put a ball across the edge of the box, but Adrien's shot was blocked by the visiting defence. Montero was again the instigator in the next move forward, this time finding Slimani, but the Algerian was beaten to the ball by the on rushing Hugo Ventura.
Belenenses could do little but bunker down under the Alvalade attacking display and on 18 minutes Montero came close to opening the scoring, when the Colombian broke away from his marker at the edge of the box to fire a shot towards goal that Hugo Ventura turned away with an outstretched save.
Although surely an emotional return to Alvalade for Ricardo Sá Pinto, the Sporting legend did a fine job of setting his team out defensively. While Jesus' side continued to move the ball around freely, a penetrating pass in the final third was lacking and it wasn't long before efforts from range began to gain a certain appeal. William Carvalho fired one over in the 36th minute, before Bryan Ruiz's genius saw the Alvalade forward ghost past various defenders and get a shot away that was turned for a corner by the Belenenses keeper.
The second-half got underway with another Sporting attempt on goal, this time with Slimani uncharacteristically missing the target with a header. The Alvalade stands were craving a goal, but neither Montero or Jonathan Silva were able to find the back of the net. With impatience starting to creep in, Hugo Ventura was finally shown a yellow card for taking an excessive amount of time to put the ball back into play.
Again Montero and Jonathan Silva created chances to take a lead, this time with the Argentinean picking out Montero with a spraying pass that the Colombian was unable to convert on .
Jesus introduced Gelson Martins and Matheus Pereira into the action and the game continued one-way, but a goal was proving near impossible to come by. Beneneses were completely unable to materialise any sort of danger for Rui Patrício's goal, but their well organised defensive style kept them in with a chance of some unlikely points as the clock ticked over. On 75 minutes Matheus Pereira burst into the box, but his shot ended up in the wrong side of the side netting.
On 82 minutes Belenenses had possibly their best chance of the ninety, when Luís Leal instigated a counter-attacking move, but the final product ended up wide of Rui Patrício's goal. Two minutes later the recently introduced Tanaka found Slimani, but the Algerian's header lacked power and was smothered by Hugo Ventura.
With dropped points looking all but inevitable, the evening's referee found time to show yellow to Slimani and see him suspended as a result from the next match. However, the best certainly was kept until last, when Tonel bafflingly cut out a ball with his hand to award Sporting a penalty that William Carvalho calmly slotted to seal the win.
