Mickey,
Have seen bits and pieces of Sporting. Watched both the games v Newcastle. They weren't that great at St James (in contrast to being pretty impressive for 60 minutes at injury hit Boro). In Lisbon v Newcastle they didn't really start to take control of the game until Newcastle started to lose players via injury. In the end I think they were 13 minutes from going out against a Newcastle side with 2 18 year olds and 1 19 year old on the pitch. The 4th goal was a shambles in injury time from a Newcastle side pushing for a second. Dyer terrified the Sporting defence until he had to go off and I still think Newcastle would have gone through if he had stayed on the pitch. All that considered, I felt AZ had a fair chance of knocking them out.
AZ gave them a very hard game in Holland and were minutes/seconds from going through. I didn't see anything of the 1st leg of the semi.
Not the greatest write up for the team I am backing
However the one thing that is a positive from the Newcastle game in Lisbon was the atmosphere when Sporting were pushing for a 2nd and 3rd, superb.
Sporting have a couple of very decent players up front. Leidson just looks a natural goal scorer. Scored a good goal in Holland, ball pinging about the box just before HT, Sporting player drives the ball in towards goal and there was Leidson on the 6 yard box to divert the ball into goal. Looks pretty slippery, good on the dribble and seems to be in the right place at right time like a lot of good goalscorers. Reminds me of Romario a little.
Doula is a flyer of a winger, very very fast. They also have Rochemback on loan from Barca (remember him pinging one in at Anfield for Barca a season or two ago) in midfield, Barbosa a very decent player. They do look a little shaky in central defence though hence them conceding in a few games. They do play at a pretty high tempo though which together with the crowd atmosphere may take them past CSKA tonight.
Not seen much of CSKA bar the Rangers game where they looked the better side as the game went on. Also saw 20/30 minutes of their CL game in Porto where they looked very decent on the break.